Students learning technical subjects generally follow the same pattern today as they did 20 years ago when faced with issues: consult an expert. This expert may take many forms: The collective wisdom of the online discussion forum, a company messaging channel, or personal visits to a senior developer’s desk. However, this approach is not truly scalable.

As more technical visitors seek remedial answers, the sheer time it takes to manage the most basic questions creates an antipathy toward the user. This antipathy is usually released through sarcastic comments, outward aggression, and obtuse answers. In fact Stack Overflow, one of the biggest destinations for technical beginners, has been described as: “[A] wasteland… a desolate, neglected area, and in terms of empathy, this suits the site pretty well.” This issue can be mollified through intelligent tutors.

Intelligent tutors need to shoulder the load of teaching basic technical principles to students, and answering common questions. Given any beginner and intermediate topics, within the bounds of any given assignment, there will always be a relatively small group of questions that will, in some form or another, arise for the majority of beginners. If this group of questions can be assessed beforehand for each assignment, solutions can be specified, and answers revealed to the user as needed in the form of a digital assistant on the tech end, or as simply as an FAQ document.

One frustrating aspect for experts is that beginners often come straight to them instead of seeking out answers on their own. Distributing answers from an intelligent tutor of some kind forces them to stretch a little farther for their early “wins”. It also gives them a sense of accomplishment for finding the answer, even if it’s being provided. Seeking out answers on their own before consulting an expert goes a long way to placating the expert when you do ask for help.

References

https://medium.com/@Aprilw/suffering-on-stack-overflow-c46414a34a52