A Multivariate Elo-based Learner Model for Adaptive Educational Systems

Abstract: The Elo rating system has been recognised as an effective method for modelling students and items within adaptive educational systems. The existing Elo-based models have the limiting assumption that items are only tagged with a single concept and are mainly studied in the context of adaptive testing systems. In this paper, we introduce a multivariate Elo-based learner model that is suitable for the domains where learning items can be tagged with multiple concepts, and investigate its fit in the context of adaptive learning. To evaluate the model, we first compare the predictive performance of the proposed model against the standard Elo-based model using synthetic and public data sets. Our results from this study indicate that our proposed model has superior predictive performance compared to the standard Elo-based model, but the difference is rather small. We then investigate the fit of the proposed multivariate Elo-based model by integrating it into an adaptive learning system which incorporates the principles of open learner models (OLMs). The results from this study suggest that the availability of additional parameters derived from multivariate Elo-based models have two further advantages: guiding adaptive behaviour for the system and providing additional insight for students and instructors.