Design concepts for an instructional tool: teaching abductive reasoning in antibody identification
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abstract
We have conducted a series of studies aimed at understanding how to design a tutoring system that will support students in expanding their knowledge of immunohematology and in developing their problem-solving skills in a problem-based learning environment. Results from these studies have led to the development of an expert model of problem solving, the identification of common errors and misconceptions in solving such problems, and the development of a model of expert tutoring in this domain. Based on the results of these studies, we designed the Transfusion Medicine Tutor and evaluated its effectiveness in teaching medical technology students to solve antibody identification cases. In our initial evaluation of TMT, the students who used a version of the system with all tutoring functions turned on and with instructor assistance went from 0% correct on a pre-test case to 87%-93% correct on post-test cases. This compares with an improvement rate of 20% by students who used a passive version of the system with the intelligent tutoring functions turned off. The behavioral protocols collected as part of this study provide further evidence regarding the contribution of the task environment, the interface design, and the use of expert systems technology to detect and remediate errors (in cooperation with a human teacher) to the student's learning.
