The Andes Physics Tutor

Andes is an intelligent homework helper for physics. That is, it replaces the pencil and paper that students would ordinarily use to solve physics homework problems. Students draw diagrams, enter equations and define variables with the same freedom that they have when using paper. Yet, unlike a piece of paper, Andes tells students whether their entry is correct by turning it red or green, and Andes will give principle-based hints when asked. Several semester-long evaluations of Andes showed that students who did their homework on it learned significantly more than students who did the same homework problems on paper.

Andes is intended for use in an Introductory College Physics course, a high school physics course, or a distance learning course. It includes over 500 problems that cover most topics in a standard two-semester trigonometry-based physics course. It is free, courtesy of funding from the National Science Foundation.

For instructors:

Tool for selecting homework problems by topic or principle of physics.
Andes problems are available through the LON-CAPA learning management system.
If you want to use Andes in your class, contact us and we can set up a LON-CAPA course for you.

For researchers: We use Andes to investigate how students learn physics and how to improve intelligent tutor systems.

The Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center uses Andes in its Physics LearnLab.
Some reasons why Andes is effective.
Publications about Andes and related systems
PERC 2007 workshop on log file analysis.
ITS2008 demo with focus on tutoring strategy.
2008 OLI Workshop with Questionnaire responses (xls) for Short version of USNA survey & essay questions suggested by S. Gershman.
PERC 2010 workshop: Experimental methods for studying Metacognition and Affect; workshop presentation.

Currently, the Andes project lives at Arizona State University with support from the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center, National Science Foundation award No. SBE-0836012. Previously, Andes was developed at the University of Pittsburgh and the United States Naval Academy with support from the Office of Naval Research, grant No. N00014-96-1-0260.