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Ben Williamson
@benpatrickwill.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer | Co-director, Centre for Research in Digital Education | University of Edinburgh | Editor of Learning, Media and Technology | codeactsineducation.wordpress.com
961 followers661 following400 posts
BWbenpatrickwill.bsky.social

There's a big problem with Altman's working out here. The statistical effect for 1:1 tutoring is 30+ years old, only applied to two contexts with small samples, referred to *human tutoring* not AI tutors, and - the kicker - *has never been replicated* 3/ www.educationnext.org/two-sigma-tu...

Two-Sigma Tutoring: Separating Science Fiction from Science Fact
Two-Sigma Tutoring: Separating Science Fiction from Science Fact

An experimental intervention in the 1980s raised certain test scores by two standard deviations. It wasn’t just tutoring, and it’s never been replicated, but it continues to inspire.

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BWbenpatrickwill.bsky.social

AI tutors are imaginary tech built on pseudo-psychological simplifications of debunked psychological statistical effects, glossed with entrepreneurial confidence and masses of investor speculation 4/

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DJdanieljarratt.com

Learning scientists do care about this and the education research community is leading rigorous evaluation of tools that use advanced computation, from psychometrics to AI. See rori.ai/learning-out... for an early example.

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Ben Williamson
@benpatrickwill.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer | Co-director, Centre for Research in Digital Education | University of Edinburgh | Editor of Learning, Media and Technology | codeactsineducation.wordpress.com
961 followers661 following400 posts