Developed by researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, ASSISTments is a free curriculum-based, formative assessment platform that applies innovative technology in education. The ASSISTments intervention aligns with theory- and empirically-based instructional practices of formative assessment and student math skill development.

This technical report extends the scope of the research brief Technology-Based Support Shows Promising Long-Term Impact on Math Learning: Initial Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial in Middle Schools, which presented the findings of a study that measured the possible long-term impact of ASSISTments on student learning.

This report further examines the differential impacts of ASSISTments on subgroups of student populations and the relationship between the usage of ASSISTments and students’ long-term math outcomes.

Study Context

  • The ASSISTments Efficacy Study was carried out in North Carolina from 2018-2020. Participating students were in Grade 7 during the 2019-20 school year. The report analyzed the data of ~6,000 students who took the North Carolina state’s general Grade 8 End-of-Grade (EOG) math test after using ASSISTments for one year, in 7th grade.
  • Of the 5,991 students in our analyzed sample, 49% were categorized as not proficient, and 72% didn’t meet the state’s College-and-Career Readiness standards at the end of the 6th grade.

Key Insights

  • ASSISTments had a significant positive impact on the study’s first primary outcome – student math learning – one year after the end of program participation. This means that students whose teachers used ASSISTments in 7th grade have reliable larger gains during 8th grade and the effects of ASSISTments on student math achievement persisted one year later. We are aware of only a handful of studies that have measurable impacts on learning one year later.
  • On the second primary outcome, the study found suggestive evidence (near statistically significant) that ASSISTments produced greater math gains for students who performed above the group median than students who scored below the group median on their 6th grade EOG test prior to the study.