A quantitative study of the impact of automated facilitation on engineering student dyadic task completion

Engineering students are very well versed in the fields of science and mathematics; however, the successful engineering student must also build their communication skills to prepare for their work on collaborative projects. Study is needed to determine if exposure to communication intervention strategies will enhance these professional skills of engineers over time. This project evaluates the effects of a structured approach to facilitation through the use of an automated Virtual Facilitator. Dyads will be asked to solve a widely used scenario entitled the “Candle Problem.” The scenario involves overcoming a common bias called “functional fixedness” that prevents subjects from seeing alternatives to their preconceived notions for the specific use of objects. This study aims to analyze the impact of automated interventions on the completion of a shared task between dyads by measuring the amount of time it takes the dyad to develop the solution, the number of inquiries inspired by the Virtual Facilitator, and whether or not the dyad was successful in completing the task. The Virtual Facilitator, using intervention techniques adapted from the work of Chris Argyris, will monitor the dyadic interactions using text matching / Boolean logic and intervene in the conversation as needed.