SWIFT™ Adaptive Testing

The key to the effectiveness of the SWIFT™ Online Math Tutor is its use of Adaptive Length Testing.

One of the common problems with most math tests is that they contain a fixed number of questions; students must complete a long series of questions in order for the system to measure their knowledge. This can cause annoyance for both novices and experts, who may be able to tell after just a few questions that the math test is either well beyond or well beneath their math understanding.

The SWIFT™ Online Math Tutor tackles this problem by employing adaptive testing. Adaptive testing allows the math tests to be remarkably shorter than traditional tests, without sacrificing any predictive ability regarding students' mastery of the material. The approach that is implemented in SWIFT is based on the work of Welch & Frick and it uses Bayes' theorem to estimate the probability that a student is a "master" or "non-master" of the subject after each question is answered. With SWIFT, novices (non-masters) and experts (masters) can be determined in as little as five questions.

You can read more about the technology behind the SWIFT Online Math Tutor at www.gemini.com

SWIFT™is a registered trademark of Gemini Performace Solutions Inc.