The Adaptive Features of an Intelligent Tutoring System for Adult Literacy
Genghu Shi
Adult learners with low literacy skills compose a highly
heterogeneous population in terms of demographic variables,
educational backgrounds, knowledge and skills in reading, selfefficacy, motivation etc. They also face various difficulties in
consistently attending offline literacy programs, such as
unstable worktime, transportation difficulties, and childcare
issues. AutoTutor for Adult Reading Comprehension (ATARC), as an online conversation-based intelligent tutoring
system that incorporated a theoretical model of reading
comprehension, was developed with great efforts to meet adult
learners’ needs and be adaptive to their knowledge, skills, selfefficacy, and motivation. In this paper, we introduced the
adaptive features of AT-ARC from four aspects: learning
material selection, adaptive branching, trialogues, and
interface, as well as the rationale behind these designs. In the
end, we suggested further research on improving the adaptivity
of AT-ARC.