Int. J. Man-Machine Studies (1990) 33, 409-429 Individualized tutoring using an intelligent fuzzy temporal relational database L. W. HAWKES Computer Science Department, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA S. J. DERRY Psychology Department, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA AND E. A . RUNDENSTEINER University of California, Irvine, USA (Received 15July 1988 and accepted in revised form i4 August 1989) The student record (SR) is a major source of input for any decision making done by an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) and is a basis of the individualization in such systems. However, most ITSs still have "generalized" student models which represent a type of student rather than a particular one. Until the SR becomes truly representative of each individual student, the goal of providing individualized tutoring cannot be attained. In this paper we describe an Intelligent Fuzzy Temporal Relational Database (IFFReD), an intelligent system-independent SR which allows for almost any degree of individualization the designer wishes to incorporate. It is anticipated that this IFTReD will provide a significant improvement over standard AI storage techniques for the SR. These improvements will be realized in terms of: (1) intelligence; (2) greater storage efficiency; (3) greater speed in retrieval and query; (4) ability to handle linguistic codes, ranges, fuzzy possibilities, and incomplete data in student models; (5) friendliness of query language; (6) avail- ability of temporal knowledge to give a history of past performance; and (7) a more holistic view of the student, permitting greater individualization of the tutor. 1. Introduction In this paper we describe a tool which addresses the point made by Ohlsson (1986), that "[a] tutoring system must have an internal representation of the student in order to adapt its teaching to him". The SR we describe is a tool in the sense that it provides the structure for incorporating information on particular students in a format that can be easily accessed and which will allow the tutor to individualize its presentations. It has several unique and powerful features: (i) a general application-independent theory of an SR, (ii) a relational representation for data storage, (iii) an intelligent SR manager which analyses the session data, plans lessons and updates the SR, (iv) fuzzy rather than crisp (true/false) entries, 409 0020-7373/90/040409 + 21503.00/0 ~) 1990 AcademicPress Limited