Data Collection in Open Ended Learning Environment for Learning Analytics

As the development and use of Open-Ended Learning Environments (OELEs) continues to increase, supporting students’ learning in these environments with Intelligent Tutoring is rapidly becoming an important area of research. Many existing learning environments guide students in step-by-step processes to reach their learning goal; consequently, data preprocessing is well defined. In OELEs, in contrast, students may achieve task goals through multiple pathways, and there exist multiple ways to assess performance. We present a simulation OELE designed to teach students decision-making in a complex problem solving task. To provide Intelligent Tutoring Support, we are required to track performance along several dimensions. We present our approach to extract data for performance assessments that can be leveraged to provide Intelligent Tutoring Support. We generalize our approach and present guidelines applicable for similar OELEs.