Initiative in Tutorial Dialogue Systems

Tutorial dialogue offers several interesting challenges to mixed-initiative dialogue systems. In this paper, we outline some distinctions between tutorial dialogues and the more familiar task-oriented dialogues, and how these differences might impact our ideas of focus and initiative. In order to ground discussion, we describe our current dialogue system, the Duke Programming Tutor. Through this system, we present a temperature-based model and algorithm which provide a basis for making decisions about dialogue focus and initiative. Tutorial Dialogue Humans engaged in tutorial sessions follow different conversational conventions than they would in many other forms of dialogue. Tutorial dialogues are similar to the apprentice-expert or task-oriented dialogues in which the expert has complete knowledge of how to accomplish the task and guides the novice through the process (Grosz & Sidner 1986; Carberry 1990). In a tutorial domain, the tutor has all the knowledge about the subject area, ..