Towards an Idiographic Education

Abstract

Picture education as a long chain of interventions in a self-organizing developmental system. On the one extreme, such educational sequences can be identical for each and every student, whereas on the other extreme, each sequence may be perfectly tailored to the individual. The latter is what is meant with idiographic education. All educational programs can be seen to lie somewhere in between those extremes, and in this book, methods are explored that may help increase the tailoring of education.The book covers advances in three fundamental approaches. First, it discusses and illustrates an experimental approach: online randomized experiments, so-called A/B tests, that enable truly double-blind evidence-based educational improvements. Second, it introduces a diagnostic approach: a scalable method that helps identify students’ misconceptions. Third and finally, it introduces a theoretical approach: a formal conceptualization of intelligence that permits a novel educational, developmental, and individual perspective, and that may justify and ultimately guide the tailoring of education.