Connecting Instructors and Learning Scientists via Collaborative Dynamic Experimentation

Abstract

The shift to digital educational resources provides new opportunities to advance psychology and education research, in tandem with improving instruction using theory and data. To realize this potential, this paper explores how randomized experiments can support mutually beneficial instructor-researcher collaborations. We developed the Collaborative Dynamic Experimentation (CDE) framework to address two key tensions. To enable researchers to embed experiments in online lessons while maintaining instructors' editorial control, Collaborative experiment authoring is needed. To enable instructors to use data for rapid improvement while maintaining statistically valid data for researchers, we apply an interpretable machine learning algorithm for Dynamic experimentation. We worked with an on-campus instructor to implement a proof-of-concept CDE system to experiment within their online calculus quizzes. The qualitative results from this deployment provided insight into how the CDE framework can facilitate alignment of research and practice.