About Me

My research is at the intersection of educational technology, cognitive science and machine learning. I develop learning platforms in several STEM domains and analyze student models from fine-grained log data to drive effective and inclusive interventions.

As a fun trivia, my machine learning class note is the top result when searching for "introduction to machine learning note" on Google. 😺

News

• school 01/2024: I have successfully passed my Ph.D. thesis defense!
• stars 09/2023: My paper about ChatGPT-generated feedback received the Best Paper Award 🏆 at the 2023 European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning.
• stars 12/2022: I received an MCDS Student Teaching Award from the Language Technologies Institute. Here's a short video of the award ceremony (credit to Su Park!).
• stars 06/2022: A paper I co-authored with Na Li received the Best Paper Award 🏆 at the 2022 ACM Conference on Learning at Scale.
• work_history 05/2021: I started my internship at Microsoft Research in the Computational Social Science group. My work resulted in a CHI'22 paper.
• speaker_notes 11/2020: I gave an invited talk "Exploring How Gender and Enjoyment Impact Learning in a Digital Learning Game" at Apple.
• stars 03/2019: A paper I co-authored with Erik Harpstead received the Best Paper Award Nomination 🏅 at the 2019 ACM Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge.

Projects

Decimal Point

08/2018 - 02/2024

Decimal Point is an educational game which has taught decimal numbers and operations to more than 1,700 middle school students. In addition to exploring the effects of student agency, learning versus enjoyment, self-explanation and ChatGPT-generated feedback, among other topics, my thesis work showed that the game can consistently help bridge the gender gap in math education, allowing girls to catch up to boys in math learning and affect.

Foundations of Computational Data Science (11-637)

03/2020 - 08/2023

11-637 is a master-level data science class, taught every semester at CMU since 2020. As one of the course founders, I led a team of 12 research assistants in developing the hands-on coding projects from the grounds up. While managing and running the course, I also conducted research on automated data science code grading and quiz question generation with GPT models.

Publications

Conference and Journal Papers

    @inproceedings{nguyen2023evaluating,
      title={Evaluating ChatGPT's Decimal Skills and Feedback Generation in a Digital Learning Game},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Stec, Hayden and Hou, Xinying and Di, Sarah and McLaren, Bruce M.},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning},
      pages={278--293},
      year={2023},
      organization={Springer},
      url = {papers/ECTEL2023_EvaluatingChatGPT.pdf},
      award={best-paper}
    }

    @inproceedings{nguyen2023gender,
      title={Gender Differences in Learning Game Preferences: Results Using a Multi-dimensional Gender Framework},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Else-Quest, Nicole and Richey, J Elizabeth and Hammer, Jessica and Di, Sarah and McLaren, Bruce M.},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education},
      pages={553--564},
      year={2023},
      organization={Springer},
      url = {papers/AIED2023_GenderDifferences.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{moore2023assessing,
      title={Assessing the Quality of Multiple-Choice Questions Using GPT-4 and Rule-Based Methods},
      author={Moore, Steven and Nguyen, Huy A. and Chen, Tianying and Stamper, John},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning},
      pages={229--245},
      year={2023},
      organization={Springer},
      url = {papers/ECTEL2023_AssessingQuality.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{moore2023writes,
      title={Who Writes Tomorrow’s Learning Activities? Exploring Community College Student Participation in Learnersourcing},
      author={Moore, Steven and Nguyen, Huy A. and Bier, Norman and Domadia, Tanvi and Stamper, John},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, International Society of the Learning Sciences},
      year={2023},
      url = {papers/ICLS2023_WhoWrites.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{moore2023crowdsourcing,
      title={Crowdsourcing the Evaluation of Multiple-Choice Questions Using Item-Writing Flaws and Bloom’s Taxonomy},
      author={Moore, Steven and Fang, Ellen and Nguyen, Huy A. and Stamper, John},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the Tenth ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale},
      pages={25--34},
      year={2023},
      url = {papers/LS2023_CrowdsourcingEvaluation.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{nguyen2023examining,
      title={Examining the Learning Benefits of Different Types of Prompted Self-explanation in a Decimal Learning Game},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Hou, Xinying and Stec, Hayden and Di, Sarah and Stamper, John and McLaren, Bruce M},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education},
      pages={681--687},
      year={2023},
      organization={Springer},
      url = {papers/AIED2023_ExaminingLearning.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{nguyen2022round,
      author = {Nguyen, Huy A. and Hofman, Jake M. and Goldstein, Daniel G.},
      title = {Round Numbers Can Sharpen Cognition},
      year = {2022},
      isbn = {9781450391573},
      publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
      doi = {10.1145/3491102.3501852},
      booktitle = {Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
      articleno = {375},
      pages = {1--15},
      location = {New Orleans, LA, USA},
      series = {CHI '22},
      url = {papers/CHI2022_RoundNumbers.pdf}
    }

    @article{nguyen2022impact,
      title={The Impact of Gender in Learning with Games: A Consistent Effect in a Math Learning Game},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Hou, Xinying and Richey, J Elizabeth and McLaren, Bruce M},
      journal={International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL)},
      volume={12},
      number={1},
      pages={1--29},
      year={2022},
      publisher={IGI Global},
      url={papers/IJGBL2022_ImpactGender.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{nguyen2022investigating,
      title={Investigating the Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on a Digital Learning Game for Mathematics},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Takacs, Zsofia K. and Bereczki, Enikő O. and Richey, J. Elizabeth and Mogessie, Michael and McLaren, Bruce M.},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education},
      pages={762--767},
      year={2022},
      organization={Springer},
      url={papers/AIED2022_InvestigatingEffects.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{nguyen2022towards,
      title={Towards Generalized Methods for Automatic Question Generation in Educational Domains},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Bhat, Shravya and Moore, Steven and Bier, Norman and Stamper, John},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning},
      pages={272--284},
      year={2022},
      organization={Springer},
      url={papers/ECTEL2022_TowardsGeneralized.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{na2022picturing,
      author = {Li, Na and Romera Rodriguez, Guillermo and Xu, Yuqiao and Bhatt, Parth and Nguyen, Huy A. and Serpi, Alex and Tsai, Chunhua and Carroll, John M.},
      title = {Picturing One's Self: Camera Use in Zoom Classes during the COVID-19 Pandemic},
      year = {2022},
      isbn = {9781450391580},
      publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
      doi = {10.1145/3491140.3528284},
      booktitle = {Proceedings of the Ninth ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale},
      pages = {151--162},
      location = {New York City, NY, USA},
      url = {papers/LS2022_PicturingOne.pdf},
      award = {best-paper}
    }

    @inproceedings{moore2022assessing,
      title={Assessing the Quality of Student-Generated Short Answer Questions Using GPT-3},
      author={Moore, Steven and Nguyen, Huy A. and Bier, Norman and Domadia, Tanvi and Stamper, John},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning},
      pages={243--257},
      year={2022},
      organization={Springer},
      url={papers/ECTEL2022_AssessingQuality.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{moore2022leveraging,
      author = {Moore, Steven and Nguyen, Huy A. and Stamper, John},
      title = {Leveraging Students to Generate Skill Tags that Inform Learning Analytics},
      year = {2022},
      publisher = {International Society of the Learning Sciences},
      booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences},
      pages = {791--798},
      url = {papers/ICLS2022_LeveragingStudents.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{sankaranarayanan2022,
      author = {Sreecharan Sankaranarayanan and Lanmingqi Ma and Siddharth Reddy Kandimalla and Ihor Markevych and Huy A. Nguyen and R. Charles Murray, Christopher Bogart and Michael Hilton and Majd Sakr and Carolyn Rose},
      title = {Reflection “in the flow” of Collaborative Programming: Designing Efficient and Effective Collaborative Learning Activities in Advanced Computer Science Contexts},
      year = {2022},
      publisher = {International Society of the Learning Sciences},
      booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning},
      pages = {67--74},
      url = {papers/CSCL2022_ReflectionCollaborative.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{mclaren2022digital,
      title={A Digital Learning Game for Mathematics that Leads to Better Learning Outcomes for Female Students: Further Evidence},
      author={McLaren, Bruce M. and Richey, J. Elizabeth and Nguyen, Huy A. and Mogessie, Michael},
      booktitle={European Conference on Games Based Learning},
      volume={16},
      number={1},
      pages={339--348},
      year={2022},
      url = {papers/ECGBL2022_DigitalLearning.pdf}
    }

    @article{mclaren2021instructional,
      title = {How instructional context can impact learning with educational technology: Lessons from a study with a digital learning game},
      author = {McLaren, Bruce M. and Richey, J. Elizabeth and Nguyen, Huy A. and Hou, Xinying},
      journal = {Computers & Education},
      volume = {178},
      pages = {1--20},
      year = {2022},
      issn = {0360-1315},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2021.104366},
      url = {papers/CE2022_HowInstructional.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{moore2021examining,
      title={Examining the Effects of Student Participation and Performance on the Quality of Learnersourcing Multiple-Choice Questions},
      author={Moore, Steven and Nguyen, Huy A. and Stamper, John},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the Eighth ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale},
      pages={209--220},
      year={2021},
      url = {papers/LS2021_ExaminingEffects.pdf}
    }

    @article{hou2022assessing,
      title={Assessing the effects of open models of learning and enjoyment in a digital learning game},
      author={Hou, Xinying and Nguyen, Huy A. and Richey, J. Elizabeth and Harpstead, Erik and Hammer, Jessica and McLaren, Bruce M.},
      journal={International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education},
      volume={32},
      number={1},
      pages={120--150},
      year={2022},
      publisher={Springer},
      url = {papers/IJAIED2021_AssessingEffects.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{nguyen2021exploring,
      title={Exploring Metrics for the Analysis of Code Submissions in an Introductory Data Science Course},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Lim, Michelle and Moore, Steven and Sakr, Majd and Nyberg, Eric and Stamper, John},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Learning Analytics \& Knowledge},
      year={2021},
      organization={ACM},
      url={papers/LAK2021_ExploringMetrics.pdf},
      pages={632--638}
    }

    @inproceedings{moore2020utilizing,
      title = {Utilizing Crowdsourcing and Topic Modeling to Generate Knowledge Components for Math and Writing Problems},
      author = {Moore, Steven and Nguyen, Huy A. and Stamper, John},
      year = {2020},
      booktitle = {Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Computers in Education},
      pages={31--40},
      url = {papers/ICCE2020_UtilizingCrowdsourcing.pdf},
      award = {honorable-mention}
    }

    @inproceedings{nguyen2020moving,
      title={Moving beyond Test Scores: Analyzing the Effectiveness of a Digital Learning Game through Learning Analytics},
      year={2020},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Educational Data Mining},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Hou, Xinying and Stamper, John and McLaren, Bruce M.},
      url={papers/EDM2020_MovingBeyond.pdf},
      pages={487--495}
    }

    @inproceedings{moore2020evaluating,
      title = {Evaluating Crowdsourcing and Topic Modeling in Generating Knowledge Components from Explanations},
      author = {Moore, Steven and Nguyen, Huy A. and Stamper, John},
      year = {2020},
      booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education},
      publisher = {Springer},
      url = {papers/AIED2020_EvaluatingCrowdsourcing.pdf},
      pages = {398--410}
    }

    @inproceedings{hou2020exploring,
      title = {Exploring How Gender and Enjoyment Impact Learning in a Digital Learning Game},
      author = {Hou, Xinying and Nguyen, Huy A. and Richey, J. Elizabeth and McLaren, Bruce M.},
      year = {2020},
      booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education},
      publisher = {Springer},
      url = {papers/AIED2020_ExploringHow.pdf},
      pages = {255--268}
    }

    @inproceedings{nguyen2019using,
      title={Using Knowledge Component Modeling to Increase Domain Understanding in a Digital Learning Game},
      year={2019},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Educational Data Mining},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Wang, Yeyu and Stamper, John and McLaren, Bruce M.},
      url={papers/EDM2019_UsingKnowledge.pdf},
      pages={139--148}
    }

    @inproceedings{wang2019learning,
      title={How Does Order of Gameplay Impact Learning and Enjoyment in a Digital Learning Game?},
      author={Wang, Yeyu and Nguyen, Huy A. and Harpstead, Erik and Stamper, John and McLaren, Bruce M.},
      year={2019},
      organization={Springer},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education},
      url={papers/AIED2019_HowDoes.pdf},
      pages={518--531}
    }

    @inproceedings{harpstead2019exploring,
      title={Exploring the Subtleties of Agency and Indirect Control in Digital Learning Games},
      author={Harpstead, Erik and Richey, J. Elizabeth and Nguyen, Huy A. and McLaren, Bruce M.},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Learning Analytics \& Knowledge},
      pages={121--129},
      year={2019},
      organization={ACM},
      url={papers/LAK2019_ExploringSubtleties.pdf},
      award={honorable-mention}
    }

    @inproceedings{nguyen2018using,
      title={Using Student Logs to Build Bayesian Models of Student Knowledge and Skills},
      year={2018},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Educational Data Mining},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Liew, Chun W},
      pages={397--403},
      url={papers/EDM2018_UsingStudentLogs.pdf}
    }

    @inproceedings{nguyen2018student,
      title={Student Agency and Game-Based Learning: A Study Comparing Low and High Agency},
      author={Nguyen, Huy A. and Harpstead, Erik and Wang, Yeyu and McLaren, Bruce M.},
      year={2018},
      organization={Springer},
      booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education},
      pages={338--351},
      url={papers/AIED2018_StudentAgency.pdf}
    }
  

Poster and Workshop Papers