Why Is Grade Distribution Often Bimodal? Why Individualized Teaching Adds Two Sigmas to the Average Grade? And How Are These Facts Related?

Authors

Christian Servin, El Paso Community CollegeFollow
Olga Kosheleva, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

6-1-2024

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-24-26

Abstract

To make education more effective, to better use emerging technologies in education, we need to better understand the education process, to gain insights on this process. How can we check whether a new idea is indeed a useful insight? A natural criterion is that the new idea should explain some previously-difficult-to-explain empirical phenomenon. Since one of the main advantages of emerging educational technologies -- such as AI -- is the possibility of individualized education, a natural phenomenon to explain is the fact -- discovered by Benjamin Bloom -- that individualization adds two sigmas to the average grade. In this paper, we provide a possible theoretical explanation for this two-sigma phenomenon. In our explanation, we use another previously-difficult-to-explain empirical fact: that the grade distribution is often bimodal -- and we explain this auxiliary fact too. In view of the above, we hope that our explanations will eventually lead to a more effectively use of emerging technologies in education.