Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Carnegie Mellon University researchers have received a four-year, $2 million award to continue research on ASSISTment, a computerized tutoring system designed to help middle school students master mathematical skills. ASSISTment will provide schools with the long-term data on student performance required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and will provide teachers and parents with instantaneous, day-to-day feedback on what students have and have not learned, making it easier to tailor instruction to help students understand concepts they are having problems with. WPI associate professor of computer science and leader of ASSISTment research Neil Heffernan says ASSISTment is the only system that can provide longitudinal data, benchmark skills assessment, and student tutoring without taking time out of classroom instruction. Kenneth R. Koedinger, Carnegie Mellon University associate professor in the Human Computer Interaction Institute and co-principal investigator on the grant, says students should not have to stop learning to take a test, particularly a practice test. "Students keep learning while they are using the ASSISTment system, and we are showing that we get just as good if not a better idea of what they know and do not know than we can from high pressure, one-shot tests." The ASSISTment system, which was built around more than 900 test items from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System 8th grade math exam, will be expanded to include sixth and seventh grade mathematics and will be able to generate user-friendly reports to show teachers and parent how individual students are performing. Finally, the system will utilize new features to help students achieve mastery of math topics. The system will track each student's progress and record which skills they have not yet mastered.
