Adaptive Tutoring Modalities for Supporting Learners' Reflective Writing Practices

Reflection is essential for fostering metacognitive development. However, many learners struggle to engage in meaningful, structured reflection without further support. To support learners in reflective practices, we developed MindBuddy, a learner-centered tutor that guides students individually through reflective writing tasks and provides adaptive feedback. After an iterative user-centered development process (two pilot studies, n=81), we conducted a longitudinal field-experimental classroom study with n=34 undergraduates over a six-week period to compare two different tutoring modalities in MindBuddy (1) interactive conversational tutoring (TG1) with (2) constructive feedback-only (TG2). No significant differences in perceived skills were found, suggesting that the conversational interactions may enhance students’ confidence in their reflective abilities, similarly to adaptive feedback interaction. While differences were found for formal reflective structure, our findings suggest that conversational tutoring has the potential to increase learners’ engagement with reflective writing. Future research on whether such engagement translates into measurable performance gains is necessary.