STEP UP is an emerging research program aiming to produce top research on optimal educational design. Our team combines its academic, government and industry experience to implement a rigorous research agenda - involving lab and field experiments, surveys and theory - to evaluate innovative solutions that are truly transformative and scalable. In doing so, we aim to learn big, essential lessons that can be generalised and employed across different fields around the world.
In this vein we have identified several initial research avenues / potential studies, around issues like:
- can our next-gen analytics generate accurate (and early!) predictions on a student’s final academic attainment based on their online behaviour early in a term (a big data approach);
- what is the role of experiential learning on decision-making and its timing, and the impact on poor time management and procrastination in online learning;
- what are the mechanisms through which peers induce engagement and shape individual behaviour, and are gender ratios important?
- what are the channel through which relative performance signals become salient in education – are there any lessons to be learned from leaderboards;
- to what extent can ‘learning-by-doing’ blend with traditional instructions/ assessments to test abstract and/or practical concepts and how effectively;
- are high power incentives posing a threat to performance quality, is there a cautionary tale to be told.