An Intelligent Math E-Tutoring System for Students with Specific Learning Disabilities

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) often experience negative emotions when solving math problems, which they have difficulty managing. This is one reason that current math e-learning tools, which elicit these negative emotions, are not effective for these students. We designed an intelligent math e-tutoring system that aims to reduce students’ negative emotional behaviors. The system automatically detects possible negative emotional behaviors by analyzing gaze, inputs on the touchscreen, and response time. It then uses one of four intervention methods (e.g., hints or brain breaks) to prevent students from being upset. To form this design, we conducted a formative study with five teachers for students with SLDs. The teachers thought that the design of four intervention methods would help students with SLDs. Among the four intervention methods, providing brain breaks is new and particularly useful for the students. The teachers also suggested that the system should personalize the detection of negative emotional behaviors to help students who have more severe learning disabilities.