Getting Started

Once you are ready to create a study you may have questions, feel free to email us at assistments-research@wpi.edu. You will need an assistments account and of course your research idea. Section 3, Collecting Data, reviews how you can use your own students or the existing ASSISTments subject pool.

There are two types of studies

Independent: All a teacher needs to do is assign the problem set and the study will run. Any teacher can get excited about the topic covered in your problem set and assign it to the students. We encourage researchers to create their studies as a skill builder so they have a better chance of being used.

Orchestrated: This type of study involves the teacher and the researcher working together to run the study. For example there may be two groups of students and they need to be in the same condition for three problem sets over the course of a week and then everyone takes a post test the following week. The researcher still creates the problem sets but then must work with the teacher to get them delivered in the correct way.

There are two types of studies

Working with the ASSISTments.org subject pool

If you would like to use our subject pool you will need to submit a structured abstract to Cristina Heffernan (assistments-research@wpi.edu) for review. Download this form, fill out as much as you can, and e-mail it to Cristina to start the process. She will review it, make comments, and once the idea is ready she will set up a phone call with you. If you decide to use the existing subject pool we recommend you select a skill builder. Go to this page to learn about skill builders. We support OpenScience so we ask you preregister your study somewhere (A good place to do that is https://cos.io/prereg/).

Take a look at our list of Skill Builders and find one that has not yet been used for a study. We have over 300 Skill Builders currently available in the system, most do not have studies in them. You can see what is in the skill builder by going to the Builder tab in your account, inputting the ID and clicking on View Problems. Include the Skill Builder you choose in your application form.