Case Study: Purdue University boosts student attainment with RM Education's RM Compare

How Purdue University significantly improved student attainment using RM Compare for Peer to Peer assessment

Purdue University, a public research university in Indiana, wanted a simple way to help first-year students in its Design Thinking in Technology course better understand the Point-of-View (POV) statement task and improve their performance on open-ended design challenges. Working with RM Education and its RM Compare product, the university explored whether students could learn more effectively by evaluating examples of prior student work rather than relying only on traditional teaching methods.

RM Education implemented RM Compare, a cloud-based Adaptive Comparative Judgement solution, to let students compare anonymized pieces of work and decide which best met the criteria. In the largest-ever study of its kind at the time, half of 550 students used the tool and significantly outperformed the control group, with seven of the top ten performers coming from the RM Compare group. Purdue found that RM Education’s approach improved attainment across all ability levels while also making assessment a collaborative learning experience.

Purdue University

Scott R. Bartholomew

PhD Assistant Professor