Identifying errors in mathematical expressions using syntactic tree structures

When constructing a practical intelligent educational system, the system needs to have the ability to reconstruct a learner's answers complete with mistakes if it is to provide learning support adapted to the learner's response. This paper proposes the use of syntactic tree structures to identify a learner's errors as an effective and realistic method for implementing such functionality. Comparing a syntactic tree structure derived from a given mathematical expression using a DCG with that derived from a learner's answer using DCG, we are able to determine whether there is an error in the learner's response. In addition, by using the results of this error identification process we are able to provide adaptive support tailored to individual learners. (C) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.