Belle Li, Lily Tan, Wei Zakharov, Qiang Qiu, Colby Ben Acton — Purdue University — cs.HC, cs.ET 📄 Full text (arXiv)
PeteChat is a course-aligned AI tutor developed and deployed at Purdue University, documented through design-based research (DBR). Drawing on literature-informed design inputs, pre-deployment baseline analysis of student-system interactions, and formative expert evaluation with teaching assistants and UX/developer stakeholders, the paper reports eight transferable design principles for assessment-aware AI tutors. These include homework guardrails (preventing answer-giving while allowing help), debugging scaffolds (guiding students through error resolution), self-regulated-learning support (prompting metacognitive reflection), and instructor-facing customization tools. The system is built on a locally hosted Llama-3 model with RAG grounded in course materials. The design principles and methodological approach offer actionable guidance for institutions deploying responsible, integrity-preserving AI tutors at scale. This work directly connects to debates in ai-literacy and academic-integrity about maintaining assessment validity while providing AI assistance, and extends intelligent-tutoring principles to the LLM era.
Related Pages
- knowledge-tracing-irt — Knowledge tracing models and IRT for student modeling
- intelligent-tutoring — AI tutoring systems and adaptive instruction
- learning-analytics — Data-driven analysis of learning processes
- ai-literacy — Understanding and evaluating AI tools
- student-modeling — Representing learner knowledge and behavior
- cs-education — Computing education research and pedagogy
- self-regulated-learning — Metacognitive strategies for independent learning
- formative-assessment — Ongoing assessment to inform instruction
- automated-grading — AI-assisted evaluation of student work
- scaffolding — Instructional support that fades with competence
Citations
APA: Belle Li, Lily Tan, Wei Zakharov, Qiang Qiu, Colby Ben Acton (2026). Tutor, Not Solver: Designing a Guardrailed AI Assistant for Learning in Higher Education (PeteChat). arXiv:2606.09845. Purdue University — cs.HC, cs.ET.