Results: Fall 2021 Learning Science Study on the Implementation of Achieve

[LibbyPhillips]

Achieve is built in partnership with instructors, students, and our Learning Science team through iterative improvement and ongoing studies supported by real student data. Macmillan’s Learning Science team collected results from instructor and student surveys, live focus groups, bi-weekly instructor logs, student platform data, and course data to analyze the relationship between homework activity and students’ final grades in precalculus and calculus courses. 

Homework completion in Achieve was significantly related to student achievement across all participating precalculus and calculus students (n=1,197). There was a statistically significant relationship between how many homework activities students finished within Achieve (as a percentage of how many were assigned in their course) and their final grade in the course. This relationship (r = 0.23) remained significant even while controlling for students reported GPA, p < .01. The graph shows the relationship between homework activity completion and final grade.

Ultimately, students found Achieve engaging and encouraging of active learning.

• 91% of students reported being engaged in the course that semester while 97% reported that Achieve helped support their learning. 
• 86% reported engaging in active learning in their course.
• A majority of students found the pre-lecture activities and the homework within Achieve engaging and helpful to their in-class learning. 

Instructors from a wide range of institutions were surveyed in their precalculus and calculus courses. Here’s what they had to say about Achieve: 

• “I think it really makes it easy for us to assign a lot of practice and have that practice give feedback to the students.”
• “I love the flexibility of the system. I can very easily update questions, change scenarios slightly, add hints to questions, and create my own.”
• “On one of the problems I assigned with a video, only 20% of students answered the problem correctly [on first try], but by the end, all but two had correctly completed the problem.”

For more details on this study, take a look at the white paper below! This series will continue with an in-depth look at the precalculus and calculus classes at some of the schools that participated in this study.

Download the white paper