Kari Lehtonen at the Engineering Department of Helsinki Polytechnic has used WebALT interactive exercises for testing and practicing for beginning students. He started using the system in January 2007 and reports the following results from fall 2007.

Motivation

First year engineering students in Finnish polytechnics have great motivation problems and greatly varying backgrounds. This leads to a high drop-out percentage and low study achievements, especially in the information technology programme. First year problems tend to concentrate on theoretical studies, especially mathematics.

Information Technology programme in Helsinki Polytechnic has decided to give special emphasis to the start of the studies by placing the students in small groups appropriate to their school background and their mathematical abilities.

The engineering department has started using an interactive online mathematics testing and teaching system developed by WebALT Inc. for the first year students. The system is based on algorithmically generated numerical and symbolic problems and it gives immediate grading and detailed feedback for students. The system is used by all information technology and industrial management beginning students.

Diagnostic testing

The diagnostic tests of the system are used to assess the level of basic mathematical skills of the new students, both for students themselves and instructors, and also to place students in appropriate study groups. The results show that the diagnostic test correlates well with the achievements in mathematics class in the first study period.
The picture shows the results of the first regular class test vs. the results in the diagnostic test for the industrial management students.

Practicing

In industrial management the system has been used also for continuous online self-tests and homework assignments. Students use the system regularly (3.7 assignment sets per week per student on the average) and they are using its feedback to monitor their mathematical progress, with minimal intervention by the teacher. The results in the assignment system and the tests correlate even better with the achievements in a regular class test (R² = 0.535).

The progress during the first study period (as measured by repeating the diagnostic test after 6 weeks) is clearly enhanced for those students that use the homework assignment system regularly vs. those students that do not use the system. See the picture below.

The system motivated most of the students to practice a lot. Since the questions are algorithmic the student gets a new version of the questions each time taking an assignment. Therefore students practiced many times with the material and the results show a clear correlation between practicing and scores of the second diagnostic test.