arXiv subjects

John F Pane

Publications and source records attributed to John F Pane.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2020

Student Log-Data from a Randomized Evaluation of Educational Technology: A Causal Case Study

Randomized evaluations of educational technology produce log data as a bi-product: highly granular data student and teacher usage. These datasets could shed light on causal mechanisms, effect heterogeneity, or optimal use. However, there are methodological challenges: implementation is not randomized and is only defined for the treatment group, and log datasets have a complex structure. This paper discusses three approaches to help surmount these issues. One approach uses data from the treatment group to estimate the effect of usage on outcomes in an observational study. Another, causal mediation analysis, estimates the role of usage in driving the overall effect. Finally, principal stratification estimates overall effects for groups of students with the same "potential" usage. We analyze hint data from an evaluation of the Cognitive Tutor Algebra I curriculum using these three approaches, with possibly conflicting results: the observational study and mediation analysis suggest that hints reduce posttest scores, while principal stratification finds that treatment effects may be correlated with higher rates of hint requests. We discuss these mixed conclusions and give broader methodological recommendations.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2018

Mastery Learning in Practice: A (Mostly) Descriptive Analysis of Log Data from the Cognitive Tutor Algebra I Effectiveness Trial

Mastery learning, the notion that students learn best if they move on from studying a topic only after having demonstrated mastery, sits at the foundation of the theory of intelligent tutoring. This paper is an exploration of how mastery learning plays out in practice, based on log data from a large randomized effectiveness trial of the Cognitive Tutor Algebra I (CTAI) curriculum. We find that students frequently progressed from CTAI sections they were working on without demonstrating mastery and worked units out of order. Moreover, these behaviors were substantially more common in the second year of the study, in which the CTAI effect was significantly larger. We explore the various ways students departed from the official CTAI curriculum, focusing on heterogeneity between years, states, schools, and students. The paper concludes with an observational study of the effect on post-test scores of teachers reassigning students out of their current sections before they mastered the requisite skills, finding that reassignment appears to lowers posttest scores--a finding that is fairly resilient to confounding from omitted covariates--but that the effect varies substantially between classrooms.

stat.AP↗