Informed Consent Form

Purpose of the study

This study investigates how learners experience cognitive load when studying tutorial materials with the help of an AI teaching agent and how can we adjust it. The findings will contribute to understanding and improving Human Computer Interaction and AI for Education.

What you will do

• Fill in a short background questionnaire.
• Complete two tutorial sessions: one on a topic related to your field of study and one on an unrelated topic. Each session involves reading a tutorial while interacting with an AI teaching assistant via chat. During each session:
  • Attention check A: A small red dot will appear in the top bar at random intervals. Click it as quickly as you can whenever you notice it. This measures your response speed during learning.
  • Attention check B: A simple math problem (e.g., "7 + 5 = ?") will appear about every 3 minutes. Type the answer and press Enter to dismiss it.
  • Knowledge check: A short multiple-choice quiz (2-3 questions) appears at the halfway point of each tutorial and again at the end.
• Complete a post-session questionnaire after each session about your experience.

The total study takes approximately 10-15 minutes.

Data collected

We collect your chat messages, response times on attention tasks, quiz answers, questionnaire responses, and anonymised interaction metrics (e.g., typing patterns, tab switches). All data is linked to a randomly generated participant ID — no personally identifying information (name, email, IP address) is collected or stored.

AI technology

The AI teaching assistant in this study is powered by DeepSeek, a third-party AI language model. Your chat messages are transmitted to DeepSeek's API solely to generate responses. No personally identifying information is included in these transmissions.

Data handling & retention

Your anonymised data will be stored securely and used solely for this research. All collected data will be deleted after the research is completed. Only the researcher and supervisors will have access to the raw data.

Voluntary participation & withdrawal

Your participation is entirely voluntary. You may withdraw at any time by closing the browser window, without giving a reason and without any penalty. If you withdraw, your data will not be used.

Contact

If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please contact the researcher at j.shi5@student.vu.nl before proceeding.