Workshop Proposal: Educational A/B Testing at Scale

Abstract

The emerging discipline of Learning Engineering is focused on putting into place tools and processes that use the science of learning as a basis for improving educational outcomes [3]. An important part of Learning Engineering focuses on improving the effectiveness of educational software. In many software domains, A/B testing has become a prominent technique to achieve the software’s goals [1]. Many large companies (Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc.) run thousands of AB tests and present at the Annual Conference on Digital Experimentation (CODE), but that venue is too broad to address AB testing issues specific to EdTech platforms. We see a need to address issues with running large-scale A/B tests within the educational context, where the use of A/B testing lags other industries. This workshop will explore ways in which A/B testing in educational contexts differs from other domains and proposals to overcome current challenges so that this approach can become a more useful tool in the learning engineer’s toolbox. Issues to be addressed are expected to include: