ABSTRACT
The Sherlock story began about a decade ago when our research and development team responded to the US Air Force’s need for an efficient training technology. Budget cutbacks across the armed services, as well as a shrinking pool of enlisted soldiers prompted the Air Force to look to Intelligent Tutoring Systems as a tool for training avionics technicians expediently in the skills needed to do their jobs, namely, diagnosing faults in, and repairing, faulty aircraft and the systems used to maintain them. Perhaps most importantly, the student can ask for advice at any point while troubleshooting. Sherlock provides advice at both the circuit path and individual component levels of investigation. The design of Sherlock 2 was also driven by the principles of apprenticeship learning upon which its predecessor, Sherlock, was based, that is, modeling of expert troubleshooting behavior, student-initiated coaching on the most difficult parts of the task, gradual fading of support as expertise is acquired.
