-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Bill Price (formerly Notyourbroom) wrote: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEAREKAAYFAkkTmRUACgkQvpDo5Pfl1oLiUwCfRpn3LxqJqTyEOckVAk5k4DMe hvoAnjVKulnWw78tj0WCEFU1teg3ObwE =TUO7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- .... > I have now been told that, for my experiment to be considered rigorous > enough, I must instead deceive the participants. I must tell all > participants that they will employ the experimental studying method, > but give one group the functioning software and give the other group a > crippled version of the software. > > The difference would be that in the crippled version, the cards would > not be scheduled by the algorithm. Rather, the students would select > what to review, and would be told that their self-grading is just to > let us know how hard each character is. > > I would envision implementing it like this: > > 1. Remove all references to spaced repetition or to feedback-based > scheduling from the interface. This would apply to both the "working" > program and to the "sabotaged" program to maintain the deception. > > 2. Rewrite the scheduling algorithm on the "sabotaged" program to > ALWAYS schedule items for the very next day when graded 2-5. > > 3. Divide the cards into small sets. (If they were all in one big set, > then the students running the "sabotaged" program would have 100+ > cards scheduled per day, always the same cards, and no one would ever > stick to that program.) > > 4. Instruct the participants using the "sabotaged" program to study by > selecting which subset of characters they want to review from the > "activate categories" menu, then going through every card in that set > and self-grading as usual. > > I don't like this design at all. But that's how I'm being told to do > it. The idea is that all of the users will see the same interface and > go through the same basic experience, just that one group will be self- > scheduled and one group will be computer-scheduled. > > I think I have the programming ability to re-write the source code to > achieve those things- it should be fairly trivial, actually, to do the > appropriate sabotage- but actually compiling the program and building > an installer (for both Windows and OS X) is beyond my knowledge > currently. I may be looking for mentoring on those subjects in the > relatively-near future... > > Best, > Bill Out of curiosity: why not keep all the text and messages the same, and simply break the algorithm for the deceived group by using instead something like a round-robin schedule*? Or is it that you think the students will know that the round-robin isn't a spaced repetition algorithm (thus damaging your results), or is it absolutely crucial that the deceived group be 'self-scheduled'? * scheduling, per day, whichever is larger of a fixed number or a percentage of the cards -- gwern --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mnemosyne-proj-users" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mnemosyne-proj-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
