12.4.1. Overview of Content Experiments

This section provides an introduction to using content experiments.

For more information, see Configure Your Course for Content Experiments and Add Content Experiments to Your Course.

12.4.1.1. Overview

You use content experiments to show different course content to different groups of learners. Also known as “A/B tests” or “split tests”, content experiments enable you to research and compare the performance of learners in different groups to gain insight into the relative effectiveness of your course content.

If your course uses content experiments, the grade report that you generate from the instructor dashboard includes a column identifying the experiment group that each learner has been assigned to. For more information, see Interpreting the Grade Report.

For information about analyzing events from content experiments, see Testing Events for Content Experiments in the EdX Research Guide.

Important

Due to an issue in the edX mobile apps, content experiments do not display correctly in the mobile apps. Blocks created with Content Experiment components display in the mobile app with a “Group ID” label.

12.4.1.2. Courses with Multiple Content Experiments

You can run multiple content experiments in your course. You can set up each experiment to use the same groups of learners, or you can set up each experiment to be independent and use a different grouping.

Important

If your course has multiple experiments, it is critical that you decide in advance if the experiments share the same groups of learners or if each experiment has its own unique grouping. If two experiments share the same grouping, then any learner that is in Group A for the first experiment will also be in Group A for the second one. If you want the experiments to be independent, then the experiments must use different groupings so that learners are randomly assigned for each experiment.

To determine the available groupings of learners, you set up group configurations using Studio or using XML.

You then select which group configuration to use when you add a content experiment using Studio or using XML.