There are currently 103 different experiments running on the ASSISTments platform, says Heffernan. One example: a researcher is testing whether it’s better to give kids a choice of what style they receive feedback in—either in text or video—or whether students do better when feedback is presented in a randomized mix of the two.
Some proponents of applying this engineering approach to learning and applying big data to education say it can lead students to learn up to 10 times faster.