Testing the Effects of Adaptive Learning Courseware on Student Performance: An Experimental Approach

An increasing number of college and university courses are being offered in an online format. Even for courses offered face-to-face, instructors are increasingly turning toward use of online platforms to help with student learning, especially for courses with high enrollment. This study tests the efficacy of adaptive learning platforms in a sample of undergraduate students in a large urban university, using an experimental design that compares the learning outcomes of students in classrooms that used an adaptive learning tool to those who did not. The results indicate that better performing students, particularly female students, benefit the most from using adaptive learning tools

Effect of Marijuana Legalization on marijuana use and days of marijuana use

INTRODUCTION: Medical marijuana is legal in 25 states and recreational marijuana is legal in 5 states in 2016. AIM: This study investigates if and how marijuana legalization expansion affects the use of marijuana and how medical and recreational use are different. METHODS: Identification strategies use a base line Difference in Difference, and a staggered Difference in Difference which estimates with relaxed assumptions and with a time varying treatment. RESULTS: Proportion of people who responded to use marijuana past 30 days increased by 1.82 percentage point from 4% baseline in MML states and 1.24 percentage point from the baseline 5% in RML states using linear regression after the legalization expansion. Base DID estimator did not find any statistically significant increase of marijuana use in MML states and only 0.72% increase in RML states. Days of using marijuana past 30 days increase slightly in both MML and RML states using linear regression. DID estimator was negative in RML states, making 16 days in RML states from the baseline 16.7 days. Staggered DID estimators for both marijuana use and days of marijuana use were negative. DISCUSSION: Compared to estimation from existing literature, DID estimators and staggered DID estimators have smaller magnitude of marijuana use and days of marijuana due to legalization expansion

Testing the effects of adaptive learning courseware on student performance: An experimental approach

An increasing number of college and university courses are being offered in an online format. Even for courses offered face‐to‐face, instructors are increasingly turning towards the use of online platforms to help with student learning, especially for courses with high enrollment. This study tests the efficacy of adaptive learning platforms in a sample of undergraduate students at a large urban university, using an experimental design that compares the learning outcomes of students in classrooms that used an adaptive learning tool to those that did not. The results indicate that better performing students, particularly female students, benefit the most from using adaptive learning tools.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/171168/1/soej12547_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/171168/2/soej12547.pd