What are intelligent coaching systems and why are they (in)evitable?

The paper is about intelligent coaching systems (ICS). ICSs are systems that "look over the shoulder" of a student or user, and interpret his/her performance of a cognitive task. This task may be an educational exercise-e.g. solving a physics problem-training of plant operators or pilots in (simulated) environments, or the use of a computer application. In the latter case the ICS is called an intelligent help system (IHS). ICSs are different from conventional training or help environments because they can interpret the task performance in terms of individual reasoning steps and not only in terms of global performance metrics or prestored categories. Although the role of an ICS can be compared to that of a human coach, e.g., the sports coach of an individual athlete, ICSs represent a new species of educational media for which there is no actual equivalent. Both in education and in industrial training it is practically impossible to cater for the required one-to-one correspondence between trainer and trainee. Having a private coach that keeps track of all your performances and pays full attention to your current steps is a luxury rather than the prototype educational relationship where a master is permanently coaching the apprentice on the job.