Building an Introductory Skill Assessment for Smarter AI Tutoring

Posted on May 4, 2025 · Tags: AI, EdTech, Personalization

When I began developing the AIcademy, one of my goals was to create a tutor that adjusts to each student’s unique skill level from the very beginning. That led me to implement an Introductory Skill Assessment system.

The assessment provides a short subject-specific quiz when a student first signs up. Based on their responses, I determine a baseline skill level for each subject. This helps in three ways:

• Sets an appropriate starting XP and challenge difficulty
• Feeds into AI prompt personalization based on skill
• Gives parents a snapshot of their child’s initial level

Instead of overwhelming or under-challenging students, this ensures the AI starts off on the right foot. From there, the XP system and difficulty scaling continue to adjust dynamically based on performance.

This initial quiz is short, intuitive, and sets the tone for a more personalized learning journey. Combined with Supabase-authenticated user data like age and grade, it forms the foundation of adaptive AI tutoring in the app.