Yanjin Long | Learning Scientist and User Experience Researcher

 

Hi! I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Learning Research and Development Center of University of Pittsburgh. I graduated from the PhD program of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in September, 2015.

My PhD work consisted of two main lines: 1) designing and developing online tools to foster students' metacognition and motivations in Self-Regulated Learning; and 2) conducting classroom experiments to empirically evaluate the effectiveness of these new technologies. I have also worked on evaluating the learning effectiveness of educational games, as well as how to integrate gamification features with Intelligent Tutoring Systems.

I draw on interdisciplinary skills and techniques throughout my research, including user-centered design, qualitative and quantitative user research, cognitive science, educational psychology, learning sciences and educational data mining.

 

Curriculum Vitae

Last updated in March 2016 [PDF]

News and Travel

2015.09.

Defended my thesis "Supporting Learner-Controlled Problem Selection in Intelligent Tutoring Systems."

2015.03.

Paper "Motivational Design in an Intelligent Tutoring System that Helps Students Make Good Task Selection Decisions" was accepted by the 17th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2015).

2014.10.01

Ph.D. Thesis Proposal, "Gamification of Support for Learning Effective Problem Selection Strategies in Intelligent Tutoring Systems."

2014.09.

Presented a poster "Tutor versus Game: A Classroom Study Comparing Student Engagement and Learning" at the Global Learning Council held at Carnegie Mellon University. [Video interview at the poster session]

2014.06.

Attended the SEM and HLM workshops at the Data Analysis Training Institute of Connecticut at University of Connecticut.

2014.06.16

Our classroom study comparing the educational effectiveness of an intelligent tutoring system to a popular educational game was featured on CMU's Homepage! Check out the story about Fun and Games.

2014.06.

Presented paper "Gamification of Joint Student/System Control Over Problem Selection in a Linear Equation Tutor" at the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS 2014) in Honolulu, Hawaii.

2014.03.

Paper "Gamification of Joint Student/System Control Over Problem Selection in a Linear Equation Tutor" was accepted by the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS 2014). [PDF of the paper]

2013.07.

Paper "Skill Diaries: Improve Student Learning in an Intelligent Tutoring System with Periodic Self-Assessment" won the BEST STUDENT PAPER AWARD at the 16th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Edudcation (AIED 2013). [PDF of the paper]