Hinting as a tactic in one-on-one tutoring

One-on-one tutoring is a particularly effective mode of instruction, and we have studied the behavior of expert tutors in such a setting. A tactic commonly used by our expert tutors is hinting, that is, the prompting of a student to recollect information presumed to be known to him or her, or the prompting of a student to make an inference needed to solve a problem or answer a question, or both. Hints may directly convey information or may point to information the student already possesses. Another tactic prompts the student in a step-by-step manner (in a directed line of reasoning) to an answer. Our tutors generated 315 hints and directed lines of reasoning in 30 hr of tutoring. The surface structure of hints is complex and varied, reflecting, in part, the fact that the utterances making up hints often serve multiple functions. Hinting is triggered by student errors but ceases when it appears that the student is unable to respond appropriately. Hints encourage the student to engage in active cognitive processes that are thought to promote deeper understanding and long-term retention. It is our intention to apply our knowledge of tutorial dialogue generation to the building of an intelligent tutoring system (ITS).