E-learning in 2022, and why Norton’s InQuizitive is fantastic
By: Aaron Cruz
E-learning is no longer viewed as a supplementary strategy, and is instead the main road for giving students an understanding of information. After using many of these systems in my own educational experiences, I have personally found that InQuizitive by Norton is the most enjoyable and useful learning tool in the classroom.
E-learning is no longer viewed as a supplementary strategy and is instead the main road for giving students an understanding of information. While educational video games and interactive experiences are difficult to develop, one type of system has arisen above all others: question-based e-learning systems. After using many of these systems in my own educational experiences, I have personally found that InQuizitive by Norton is the most enjoyable and useful learning tool in the classroom.
In order for a computer to teach something to a student, it needs to somehow test their knowledge of the material. Apart from some sort of educational video game, this is handled universally by a series of questions regarding the material. Questions are great for computers because they can be stored easily, typically have binary outputs (either you get the question wrong or you get it right) and they can be swapped out for each other, meaning different subject materials can be taught using the same program. In order to make sure that a student has an understanding of the material, we need to ensure that they get a number of questions correct. However, we also need to make sure they aren’t just guessing and getting answers correct by dumb luck—we need to somehow punish a user for getting a question wrong. So, every e-learning solution requires the following by definition:
- Questions regarding the material
- A reward for answering a question correctly
- A punishment for answering a question incorrectly
What separates these solutions is how they handle these three things.
Quizlet
The milktoast of the e-learning world, Quizlet has become known by students everywhere for having content that is plentiful, diverse, and most importantly, entirely free for everyone. This pricing model, or lack thereof, makes Quizlet a staple in the student world, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Quizlet is based on a flashcard system, each of which has one question on one side and one answer on the other side. Students can go through the flashcards one by one, just as they would go through a real deck of flashcards.
Of course, the flashcards alone do not make up an e-learning system Instead, Quizlet’s “Learn” feature, introduced in March of 2017, fills that role. Quizlet turns the flashcards into questions by giving the user a box to type the answer into, alongside the question. If the text inputted matches the text on the answer card, the user gets the question correct. Quizlet also creates multiple-choice questions, placing a question from one card alongside answers from multiple cards, and asks the user to choose the answer which matches the question. This style of auto-generated multiple choice question is often poor. When choices are not picked by a human to be similar to each other, the answer is often obvious. Quizlet keeps track of a student’s understanding of each card individually. When a student gets a question right, this score is increased. When a student gets a question wrong, this score is decreased. A lower score on a card means easier questions are asked with it, like the multiple choice questions, and a higher score bumps the questions up to free-response. Once the score reaches a certain threshold, the card is removed from rotation. When all cards have been removed from rotation, Quizlet knows that the student understands all of the material, and the student “wins” Quizlet Learn.
This system has great strengths, but also great weaknesses. Its primary strength is that it is able to ensure the student understands the material perfectly. A student who has finished a Quizlet Learn session has demonstrated that they can recite what is on the answer side of every flashcard in the session multiple times in a row. However, that also means that a student who has finished a Quizlet Learn session has answered a number of questions that is at least twice the number of flash cards in the stack. This number is most likely much higher though—any question answered incorrectly is asked back to the student at least three more times, which means that the student is answering at least 4 questions for that card. If the student is just a little iffy on 50% of the material, they will be asked on average 3 questions per flashcard. A typical Learn session, played by a student who has poor understanding of the material to begin with, entails about 5 questions per card, on average. That means that in a set of 40 flashcards, you will be asked 200 questions. 20 seconds per question and one student is looking at spending over an hour to learn these cards. A good learning system shouldn’t just give the user an understanding of the material, but also do it quickly. Quizlet does not do the latter.
WileyPLUS
WileyPLUS takes an alternative approach. While Quizlet ensures each student will eventually reach understanding by re-asking failed questions until the student gets them correct, WileyPLUS gives the student a fixed number of attempts to get the answers to a set of questions correct. After your attempts are up, the question is permanently failed. This works much better for a real school environment, where giving students grades beyond “finished/unfinished” is necessary. However, it prevents some students from fully understanding the material. It also encourages cheating, as students are more likely to maliciously ensure their success rather than accept their failure if it guarantees a lesser grade.
However, WileyPLUS takes some extra measures to fix these problems. First of all, questions are hand picked, which means that students are more likely to be guided to understanding by an expertly crafted set of questions, rather than having understanding nailed into them by a computer-generated system. Furthermore, there are far more questions in a WileyPLUS worksheet than there are in a Quizlet flashcard set. A given worksheet contains around 200 questions. WileyPLUS does not fix the time issue that Quizlet also had, but it ensures a better understanding in its users as more different questions are asked. Also, since WileyPLUS gives out grades after a worksheet, it is easier to identify numerically how well students are engaging with the material. Quizlet can technically be cheesed by working for as long as possible.
Inquizitive
Similar to Quizlet, Inquizitive keeps an understanding score that goes up when a student gets a question correct, and down when a student gets a question wrong. However, there are a few differences. Primarily, this understanding score is global, instead of per question. This score is also shown to the player, instead of kept as a secret in the program’s code. This means that the score is kept at the forefront of the student’s mind. Inquizitive also pushes the score into the student’s mind by drawing a chart of the score over time, which shows exactly how they’ve failed and succeeded over time. When you have an understanding per question, it means that every failure creates a question that has to be answered later down the line. Every failure is representative of the time you have to spend answering questions. This decreases morale and makes students less likely to want to continue. Inquizitive’s system means that every failed question can be made up for with the next question, which makes worksheets much breezier without compromising teaching proficiency.
Inquizitive’s crowning jewel, though, is the risk system. A student can tell Inquizitive how much understanding they have of the material, ranging from “I have no idea!” to “I know I know it!” If the student tells Inquizitive that they “have no idea”, their score will only go down a little when they get the question wrong, but it will also only go up a little if they get the question right. Conversely, if the student “knows they know it,” their score will increase a lot on success and will decrease a lot on failure. This has three primary benefits. First of all, it gamifies learning, adding a risk / reward system that makes answering questions genuinely addictive. Second of all, it ensures a student that doesn’t know the material will not get punished, but will also not be able to finish until they decide they understand the material properly. The system allows students to learn at their own pace, and punishes them when they deviate from a pace that would be perfect for them, rather than punishing them simply for failure. Inquizitive will tell you, if you have the risk bar set high and you have failed many questions in a row, to turn it down, and vice versa. This brings a new angle to the punishment / reward problem—one that gets students moving at a pace that works for them. It’s like moving from a fancy dinner to an all you can eat buffet.
Inquizitive is also just delightful. The interface is fun and playful. It is the only e-learning solution I’ve seen that employs sound and visual effects to make answering questions correctly more fun. It feels more like a well tuned toy than a solid, unmoving machine.
E-learning is the future, whether we want to accept it or not. These systems govern the understanding of topics that students will move into the real world with. Essentially, these programs shape the future of the world. Quizlet’s algorithmic approach and WileyPLUS’s teach by quantity approach technically work, but they bog down students rather than encourage them to keep learning. Inquizitive gamifies the experience into something more fun. However, Inquizitive is just one of many systems looking to improve how students learn. In the future, it will be interesting to see how these programs develop. I think artificial intelligence and machine learning will give way to a new generation of virtual professors that will throw away the notion of question-based e-learning. In the end, it’s up to textbook manufacturers and technology startups to answer one question: How will computers algorithmically give students an understanding of real-world concepts? Answer correctly and we will live in an educational utopia—answer incorrectly, and the punishment will be dire.