Deep Dives: Student and Instructor Outcomes
Deep Dives has been shown to improve students’ writing confidence, grade attainment, and instructor grading time.
What is Deep Dives? Deep Dives is Packback’s AI-powered platform for written assignments that provides instant feedback to students while they write, and gives instructors powerful AI-based grading assistance.
About this Study: This study explored the results of a multi-month series of surveys of students and instructors using Deep Dives in its first term of use.
Student Outcome: Students earn more A’s with Deep Dives
What average grade do you receive on writing assignments (with and without Deep Dives)?
+11%
More A’s
There was an 11% increase in students reporting receiving A’s on their assignments completed using Deep Dives, compared to the grades they received on past writing assignments without Deep Dives (P=.0026).
Student Outcome: Students become more confident writers
How confident do you feel in your writing abilities when completing a writing assignment (with and without Deep Dives)?
+55%
Increase
64.96% of students reported feeling confident when completing writing assignments when using Deep Dives, compared to just 41.72% of students before using Deep Dives. This represents a 55% increase in students that feel confident when writing because of Deep Dives (P=<0.001)
Instructor Outcome: Instructors have to spend 30% less time grading each essay
Did Packback Deep Dives make it more feasible/manageable to assign writing assignments, compared to classes without Deep Dives?
78%
of Faculty Agree
78% of instructors agreed that Packback Deep Dives makes assigning and grading writing assignments more feasible and manageable, compared to assigning writing in classes without Deep Dives. The average grading-time-per-essay decreased from 13 minutes to 9 minutes, on average.
Instructor Outcome: Instructors are more satisfied with their students’ writing quality
How satisfied are you with your students’ writing quality?
+89%
of Faculty Agree
89% increase in instructors reporting that they were either “Very Satisfied” or “Satisfied” with their students’ writing after using Deep Dives (P=.0003), compared to their satisfaction with student writing over the past 3 years prior to Deep Dives.
Summary: In Fall 2022, Packback Deep Dives launched. Early faculty and student users were surveyed about their experience. 53 instructor responses, and 620 student responses are reflected in this research summary that explores student outcomes and faculty outcomes after using Deep Dives.