Acquired by McGraw Hill in 2013 - $200 Million
Self-described as: "Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces is a Web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system. ALEKS uses adaptive questioning to quickly and accurately determine exactly what a student knows and doesn't know in a course. ALEKS then instructs the student on the topics she is most ready to learn. As a student works through a course, ALEKS periodically reassesses the student to ensure that topics learned are also retained. ALEKS courses are very complete in their topic coverage and ALEKS avoids multiple-choice questions. A student who shows a high level of mastery of an ALEKS course will be successful in the actual course she is taking."
ALEKS came out of research efforts, primarily around Knowledge Spaces (1999). Many details published and shared via: Research and Publications.
In “A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of ALEKS on learning”, Fang, Ren, Hu and Graesser examined 15 empirical studies with 24 independent samples. The first question they looked to answer in their analysis was the effectiveness of ALEKS on student learning outcomes. They found:
“Regarding the first question, we found that the use of ALEKS had no negative effect, and perhaps a very small positive effect on student learning, when compared with other types of instructions” (Fang et al, 2018, pg. 10).
At first glance, this seems like a less than positive assessment of the impact. However, they also go on to state: “Findings of this meta-analysis suggest that ALEKS could be used to help teaching and learning at different levels of schooling, as its effectiveness was found to be comparable with traditional classroom instruction” (Fang et al, 2018, pg 13).
ALEKS was acquired by McGraw Hill in 2013 at a valuation over $200 million.
Page created by: Lee Ackerman