Abstract
This paper describes how a small educational technology (edtech) company worked with academics, combining technological expertise, science content expertise, pedagogy and social research methodology to develop and evaluate the effect of video feedback on learners’ ability to answer science questions correctly. The investigation was carried out by the research team in Tassomai as part of their involvement with the EDUCATE programme. The Tassomai team worked with the research mentors in EDUCATE to find the best ways of helping students both to understand science concepts and to help them correctly answer science questions in exams. Findings indicated that, as expected, the video feedback helped learners to answer the question correctly, but also that, after a delay of around one week, a higher proportion of those students were still able to answer the question correctly compared to those in a control group of learners who did not have access to the related instructive video. The collaborative work between the Tassomai research team and the EDUCATE business and research mentors provided an environment to share expertise and channel it to improve Tassomai’s offering to learners. As a result of this study, Tassomai is now investing in the production of more instructive videos to help students understand difficult science concepts, and students will be offered these videos if they are having difficulty in answering the questions correctly.
Highlights
The use of software to support teachers and students represents a considerable portion of UK schools’ annual budget spending and, while not a new concept, has been increasing strongly over recent years (Manning, 2017; Vickers, 2017)
The first stage provided an overview of the two populations of students and assessed the extent to which they progressed through the stages of the experiment or, through error or failure to qualify, dropped out
The second stage measured the effect of the video on attainment by comparing the two cohorts by their answers to the CHECK questions
Summary
The use of software to support teachers and students represents a considerable portion of UK schools’ annual budget spending and, while not a new concept, has been increasing strongly over recent years (Manning, 2017; Vickers, 2017). While some of the larger, more established publishers and software providers supply solutions of this nature, the majority of tools taking hold in the domestic market are developed by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups, usually founded by individuals with a background in teaching (Cukurova et al, 2019). Tassomai, as one such education software provider, was built with the original intention of supporting the self-directed study of the founder’s own students working in core subjects at Key Stages 2 to 4 (for students aged 11 to 16). This fast growth in terms of usage created a large data set with which the company is able to run continuous internal analyses for the purpose of adapting both its content and its systematized algorithmic techniques to strengthen the existing product offering, and to inform further product development to support more students in new subjects or age groups
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