Students can be stimulated to become active learners using a tool for active writing. In our university we developed such a tool: POLARIS. Active writings of students about statistical concepts are valuable for the students and the teacher. In their writings students show their understanding of statistical topics. The problem then is how to interpret the writings of students in relation to their proficiency in statistics. Advances in cognitive psychology have extended our understanding of students' learning and broadened the range of performances that can be used to acquire evidence about the developing abilities of the students. Furthermore advanced technology has made it possible to capture complex performances of students in assessment settings. In this paper the advances in both domains will be explored in order to propose a system to monitor and diagnose students' on going learning.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education