Building simple problems or problem sets in Assistments is pretty easy to do. However, Assistments can do so much more than deliver a basic assignment. Behind the scenes, Assistments has the capability to test educational techniques. One of the tasks I had while working at WPI was to document the process to build Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) to be delivered within the assignments, while avoiding things like selection bias.

A simple kind of study that might be done would be to test the efficacy of a video hint system over text based hints. In that case, one of the things we want to do is to make sure that there is no selection bias by having students who cannot see or hear videos placed into either arm of the trial. What we can do is to ask students a question (that does not affect their score) where they have to get a very simple answer from a video. Any students who fail this test are excluded from the study, and would receive text-based hints as per usual. The students who pass the test question are then randomized into the control condition (text-based hints), and the Experimental (or "Treatment") condition (video hints). This way, a student who has a malfunctioning video player / earphones / etc is not placed into a condition where their performance is based on a factor external to the study. The image on the left diagrams such a study (including a post-test section).

At the Assistments Advanced Builder Instruction Site, I built step by step instructions, diagrams, and template problem sets for researchers to use to build their own studies.