{"pk":26731,"title":"Source Expertise and Question Type Effects in Conversation-Based Assessment","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Conversational discourse is a cognitive and social process influenced by both discourse content and pragmaticfactors, such as the participants’ prior knowledge; these factors may also affect how simulated conversations with virtual agentsunfold, with implications for design. This study explored effects of question content and perceived expertise of a virtual agenton students’ interactions with a conversation-based assessment (CBA) measuring science inquiry skills. Twenty-four middleschool students were randomly assigned to work with a High- or Low-Knowledge virtual peer to collect data and generateweather predictions. Students evaluated their own data relative to the peer’s; they could either ”Choose” which note to keep, orto ”Agree/Disagree” with the peer’s suggested choice of note. Students rated the peer as more expert in the High-Knowledgecondition, but peer expertise did not affect performance. However, the Agree/Disagree condition improved students’ accuracyin their note choice, and yielded marginally higher pre-post learning gains.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Member Abstracts","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0xf5d5zs","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Jesse","middle_name":"","last_name":"Sparks","name_suffix":"","institution":"Educational Testing Service","department":""},{"first_name":"Jessica","middle_name":"","last_name":"Andrews","name_suffix":"","institution":"Educational Testing Service","department":""},{"first_name":"Diego","middle_name":"","last_name":"Zapata-Rivera","name_suffix":"","institution":"Educational Testing Service","department":""},{"first_name":"Blair","middle_name":"","last_name":"Lehman","name_suffix":"","institution":"Educational Testing Service","department":""},{"first_name":"Kofi","middle_name":"","last_name":"James","name_suffix":"","institution":"Educational Testing Service","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2016-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/26731/galley/16367/download/"}]}