Radboud

Country:

The Netherlands

Target group:

Higher education

Use case:

Both declarative and procedural knowledge play an important role in higher education, and both forms of knowledge are essential for effective learning and academic success. By using an adaptive learning system, students spend less time acquiring the building blocks upon which they can build further during a course.

Based on a computer model of the learners’ memory, the adaptive learning system of MemoryLab determines which items should be presented to the learner at which point during the learning session, effectively tailoring the learning procedures to the needs of each individual learner. By integrating MemoryLab into a broad range of courses at Radboud, the distribution of learning improves, and students’ motivation and classroom readiness greatly increase.

Highlights

We introduced MemoryLab in Ghent for the Introduction to Cognitive Psychology course, where students used our system to prepare for lectures and exams. The collaboration provided the following insights:

Memory parameters estimated for each student correlated with final exam grades
Our system predicted the exam score at the course
Students using our system scored higher on average in the exam

Key findings

Overall our results indicate that in our pilots:

Learning outcomes improved, with more students, even when using the system voluntarily, benefiting from the structured and personalized approach it offers.
Students achieve higher grades in their exams and are more confident.