Adaptive Learning Textbooks

What is Adaptive Digital Learning?

Every student brings to a course his/her own level of aptitude and prior knowledge. In many classrooms, the instructors strive to adjust their instructional strategies to individual students and their learning styles. However, this is time-consuming and challenging, as each student learns at a different pace in practice.

Advances in adaptive learning technologies have now made it possible to personalise the learning experience for each individual student - targeting improvements in weaker areas, helping with knowledge retention and providing feedback that is “just in time, just enough, and just for me.” Adaptive digital learning takes into account current student performance, and adapts accordingly to support, and maximise learning. By design, adaptive digital tools respond to a student's interactions in real-time by automatically providing personalised instruction based on individual student abilities and learning progression.” (Basitere and Ivala, 2017; McGraw-Hill Education Group, 2014).

Using such adaptive learning technologies, instructors can more effectively “flip” the classroom, as they can better check their students preparedness before engaging in more advanced instructional methods for deeper learning in the classroom (e.g. application of theory in case studies, advanced group exercises, projects, discussions, debates, presentations, etc.).

Many adaptive learning platforms also provide the instructor with feedback on which materials students are struggling with, allowing him or her to adapt the instruction based on the class’ progress. The promise of the technology is that, by ensuring sufficient mastery level for different topics, it allows the instructor to spend more time on active, constructive and interactive learning tasks to achieve higher-level learning objectives.

Evidence in support of adaptive digital learning

A literature review identified a limited number of experimental studies in which control groups were compared with treatment groups that used e-textbooks with adaptive learning features. Gearhart (2016), for example, found that undergraduate students in the treatment group achieved higher scores on textbook-related exam questions than those in the control group in an Interpersonal Communication course. In another study conducted by independent research firms commissioned by Cengage (2015), psychology students in the treatment group using Cengage’s MindTap platform performed about one-third of a standard deviation (Cohen’s d = 0.33) better than students in the control group not using MindTap.

Other studies, which did not use control groups, generally examined whether a student’s use of the e-textbook supplemented with adaptive learning features correlated with his or her exam grades (Gurung, 2015; Hegeman, 2015). The studies indicate (some of them controlling for overall GPA) that generally, higher use by students was associated with higher course grades.

Adaptive digital learning also leads to increases in course pass rate (Pearson Education 2018; Broadway Analytics Inc, 2014; McGraw-Hill Education Group, 2014). The analytics reports in the adaptive learning platforms inform instructors of students falling behind to allow for early intervention.

Some studies also reported instructors’ and students’ perceptions of using them. In surveys and focus group interviews, students expressed higher levels of engagement with the course content. They also reported that the e-textbook supplemented with adaptive learning features helped them with the exam review (Gearhart, 2016; Griff & Matter, 2013). Instructors, on their side, found that they were able to gain meaningful insights on how their students were learning through the “analytics dashboards” (Broadway Analytics Inc, 2014; McGraw-Hill Education Group, 2014).

At the same time, some students in these studies reported that working on the practice questions and quizzes in such e-textbooks, took up more time than what they wanted to spend, citing lack of time and motivation, and forgetting as reasons for limiting their completion on the online practice questions and quizzes (Gearhart, 2016; Griff & Matter, 2013; Gurung, 2015). So, while current research findings require a nuanced assessment, we expect the impact on student learning to become stronger as the technology improves with more high-quality textbooks being converted to include well-designed and proven adaptive learning features.

It has to be noted that, while most of the studies are published by academics in peer-reviewed journals, some were commissioned by the educational publishers and conducted by independent research firms and not all of those were peer-reviewed (Pearson Education, 2018;, Cengage, 2015; Broadway Analytics, 2014).

For more details on the individual studies, click here for a summary table.

Adaptive digital learning in practice at SMU

At SMU, several faculty members have experimented with using adaptive digital tools for teaching to collect real-time data that provides insights on what and how their students are learning.

Since August 2016, about 500 students taking different courses in subject areas such as Economics, Strategy, Finance and Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources (OBHR) have been supported in their learning with adaptive courseware offered by educational publishers. In measuring students’ perceptions on their experiences with the use of such adaptive digital tools, CTE collaborated with faculty members and administered surveys on Qualtrics to collect feedback from students. Some students reported that clearer instructions could be given to facilitate their navigation of the educational publishers’ platform and suggested having more questions of higher difficulty levels (beyond comprehension and recall) included as part of the online quizzes. Technical issues such as taking a long time to load the e-textbooks, and the incompatibility of the e-textbooks on a certain mobile operating system were also shared by students. Nonetheless, the analyses of the findings were generally positive:

Faculty members’ testimonials:

Associate Professor Tan Swee Liang has also shared her experience with adaptive digital tools for her International Economics course (EDGE Issue #3).