Overview

Experiments-As-a-Service-Infrastructure (EASI)

Instructional decisions about digital educational resources can impact thousands, from practice problems in K12 to tutorial webpages in university and community college. The current versions of resources are arguably too infrequently tested against alternatives, in order to use data about learning to choose the best.

We aim to make it easier to get evidence from randomized field experiments that compare alternative instructional approaches, to identify which versions quantifiably impact learning outcomes. For example, experiments have identified methods for making students so motivated that they score half a letter grade higher, by identifying how and when to prompt students to reflect on a course’s personal relevance (Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2009)¹.

We propose the Experiments-As-a-Service-Infrastructure (EASI) to enable a collaborative ecosystem of experimentation in real-world educational settings. EASI aims to lower the barriers for designing, deploying, analyzing and adapting educational field experiments .