Error Rate
Optimizing the Engagement by Modulating the Error-Rate
As a learner progresses in a topic, the difficulty of the challenges will increase, and the tests that are passed to the learner will get more difficult accordingly. However, if the questions get more difficult too fast, the learner will disengage from following the progress as they get anxious, while on the other hand, if the questions remain too easy, the learner gets bored quickly and would similarly lead to disengagement.
Therefore there is a narrow boundary in which the learners retain their curiosity and attention while the learning and engagement rate remains maximized. Depending on age, endurance, and other factors, this boundary can be different for each user.
The best practice is to pinpoint this boundary for each learner and modulate the difficulty of the questions and lessons such that the learner would navigate seamlessly on this boundary.
A simulation that suggests the task difficulty should be constantly modulated, such that the optimal error rate would be kept at 16.6% to achieve the best learning rate.
Wilson, Robert C., et al. "The Eighty Five Percent Rule for optimal learning." Nat. Commun., vol. 10, no. 4646, 5 Nov. 2019, pp. 1-9, doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12552-4. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12552-4
van Praag, Henriette, et al. "Neural consequences of enviromental enrichment." Nat. Rev. Neurosci., vol. 1, Dec. 2000, pp. 191-8, doi:10.1038/35044558. https://www.nature.com/articles/35044558
Dehaene, S. (2023, July 07). How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00131911.2021.1930914