An object-oriented tutoring system for teaching sets

Over the recent years several prototypes of intelligent tutoring systems for scientific subjects have been developed. Meanwhile, the object-oriented paradigm has become popular in the software engineering and artificial intelligence communities. The objective of the research presented in this paper is an application of the object-oriented paradigm to the design and implementation of an intelligent tutoring system. The domain of the system is the set theory at the secondary school level. It is shown that the inheritance hierarchy of the object-oriented paradigm is very useful in defining and organizing the components of the set theory, and in the generation of examples and questions. The issues raised in the object-oriented design of an intelligent tutoring system are discussed.