ERIC Number: ED656930
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Blocking vs. Interleaving: Examining Single-Session Effects within Middle School Math Homework
Korinn Ostrow; Neil Heffernan; Cristina Heffernan; Zoe Peterson
Grantee Submission, Paper presented at the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (Jun 2015)
The benefit of interleaving cognitive content has gained attention in recent years, specifically in mathematics education. The present study serves as a conceptual replication of previous work, documenting the interleaving effect within a middle school sample through brief homework assignments completed within ASSISTments, an adaptive tutoring platform. The results of a randomized controlled trial are presented, examining a practice session featuring interleaved or blocked content spanning three skills: Complementary and Supplementary Angles, Surface Area of a Pyramid, and Compound Probability without Replacement. A second homework session served as a delayed posttest. Tutor log files are analyzed to track student performance and to establish a metric of global mathematics skill for each student. Findings suggest that interleaving is beneficial in the context of adaptive tutoring systems when considering learning gains and average hint usage at posttest. These observations were especially relevant for low skill students. [This paper was published in: "AIED 2015, LNAI 9112," edited by C. Conati et al., Springer International Publishing Switzerland, 2015, pp. 338-47.]
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers; Reports - Research
Education Level: Junior High Schools; Middle Schools; Secondary Education; Elementary Education; Grade 7
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED); National Science Foundation (NSF); Department of Education (ED); Office of Naval Research (ONR) (DOD)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Massachusetts
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: R305A120125; R305C100024; 1316736; 1252297; 1109483; 1031398; 0742503; 1440753; P200A120238
Author Affiliations: N/A

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