arXiv:2605.15850cs.CYcs.AI2026-05被引 1

用强化学习控制生成式AI使用时机,提升学生学习效果。

Access Timing as Scaffolding: A Reinforcement Learning Approach to GenAI in Education

论文配图:Access Timing as Scaffolding: A Reinforcement Learning Approach to GenAI in Education
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 用强化学习决定学生何时可用AI,基于元认知与认知负荷理论
  • 相比无限制使用,策略性访问显著提高测试成绩与元认知准确度
  • 无需额外提示或结构化指导,适合现有教育工具快速部署

近年来,生成式AI在大学生日常学习中已普遍使用,但无约束使用可能引发过度依赖、元认知脱节和学习效果下降。尽管已有研究关注如何教学引导使用,但何时允许使用现成生成式AI仍缺乏实证研究。本文将访问时机本身视为一种隐性支架,通过基于元认知理论、认知负荷理论和有效失败理论设计的强化学习(RL)代理,动态决策学生何时可访问生成式AI。在一项包含105名高等教育学生的混合方法对照实验中,比较了该策略与完全开放和完全禁止使用的差异。结果表明,在强化学习条件下,战略性使用生成式AI显著提升了客观测验表现和元认知准确性,且无需显式元认知提示或结构化支持。与完全禁止条件的探索性对比也显示,定时访问可减少任务错误率并缩短完成时间。因此,生成式AI的使用时机是一种可操作、理论基础扎实且易于推广的教学策略,兼容现成工具,具有较低应用门槛,为未来人机协同学习系统设计开辟新方向。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

In recent years, generative AI (GenAI) in educational settings has become ubiquitous in university students' daily lives, despite its potential to induce over-reliance, metacognitive disengagement, and diminished learning when used unrestrictedly. While most prior research has focused on how to pedagogically scaffold its usage, the question of when to allow off-the-shelf GenAI remains understudied and lacks pedagogically grounded empirical investigation. We treat access timing itself as a form of implicit scaffolding and operationalize it through a reinforcement learning (RL) agent that decides when students should access GenAI, with a reward function grounded in metacognitive theory, cognitive load theory, and productive failure. In a mixed-methods controlled lab study with N=105 higher education students, we compared the agent's effect on learning gains and metacognitive engagement to unrestricted and fully restricted use. Results show that strategically timed GenAI access under the reinforcement learning condition improved objective post-test performance and metacognitive accuracy compared with unrestricted access, without requiring explicit metacognitive prompts or structured scaffolding. Exploratory comparisons with the fully restricted condition further suggest that timed access may reduce task errors and time on task relative to complete withholding. Overall, timing of GenAI access therefore is a tractable, theoretically grounded, and scalable pedagogical strategy that improves over completely unrestricted and withheld access, compatible with off-the-shelf tools and potentially low adoption barrier. This opens up a new research area that explores how access timing can be facilitated by educators and implemented in human-AI learning system design.

生成式AI教育技术强化学习元认知

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