This is a bit of research for a Substack post. I'm looking for some background info as I can't access Sparx myself (and haven't used it either), so I won't name anyone.
I'm a home educator who uses a lot of EdTech and I got into a conversation with someone who said that Sparx maths is designed to always allow the student to get 100% in their homework and, thus, if they don't manage it, it means they haven't bothered doing it.
This seemed a bit odd because I know SEND kids can be years behind grasping fundamentals. So, I wondered if a teen was struggling with a homework about improper fractions whether it would eventually be like "hey, here's a worked example about what 1/3 is and how fractions work"? Or whether it would literally try serving up variants of improper fractions indefinitely, even if the student didn't remember how to add 1/6+5/6 and, thus, was struggling?
My experience with EdTech programs is that they tend to barf at a certain point and just keep doing the same thing, and I have to adjust the dashboard/backend of even good adaptive software a lot to tailor it to my kids.