Collection and analysis of students' writing samples on a large scale is a part of the research agenda of the emerging writing analytics community that promises to deliver an unprecedented insight into characteristics of student writing. Yet with a large scale often comes variability of contexts in which the samples were produced--different…

We explore in this paper if automated scaffolding delivered via a pedagogical agent within a simulation can help students acquire data collection inquiry skills. Our initial analyses revealed that such scaffolding was effective for helping students who initially did not know two specific skills, designing controlled experiments and testing stated…