Assistance Dilemma : Giving and Withholding Learning Support

Abstract

  Recent intelligent tutoring systems function with higher interactive futures and provide various types of instructional support.  For such learning support, a crucial issue arises regarding the valance of the degree of support, that is, the degree by which the support continues and the point at which it is terminated.  This issue, called “the assistance dilemma”, is drawn from a duality of cognitive activities: learning-oriented and performance-oriented activities.  Learners have to assign their limited working memory capacity to both activities in order to perform tasks (performance-oriented activities) and to construct schema for learning (learning-oriented activities).  The present paper discusses the assistance dilemma from the viewpoints of goal achievement theory, which was developed in educational psychology, and cognitive load theory, which was established in cognitive science and cognitive psychology.  Literature relating to these two theories is reviewed.