In the third publication of this series we seek to explore the third objective of the Efiko pilot – to assess the effects of targeted incentives towards the adoption and performance of students on Efiko. To achieve this, the Efiko team designed the next edition of the Efiko Ultimate Challenge to run alongside the Efiko pilot. The Efiko Ultimate Challenge had earlier been created to reward top performing students on the Efiko platform. To accommodate the pilot, a separate category for the 2-month long Challenge was created specifically for students participating in the Efiko pilot.

For the first category, which was open to all users of Efiko, including students participating in the pilot, the prize winners for both months were selected based on a combination of their frequency and scores. In particular the following was the qualifying criteria:

i.  Students who had a high frequency figure and played a minimum of 20 quizzes for that month
ii. Students who scored the highest for that month and earned a minimum cumulative of 1000 points.

For this group, the prizes awarded included a Nokia 205 mobile phone, an Efiko branded T-Shirt, and 20 Efiko branded exercise books for first, second and third positions respectively.

The second category of the Efiko Ultimate Challenge specially created for students participating in the pilot, rewarded students who had the highest scores, without consideration to their frequency of play. For each month, the top 10 performing students were selected, drawn from all 750 students participating in the pilot, across the 3 different states*.

First Category: Top Performing Students by Frequency and Score

For the general category, we begin with data from students who were winners in this category, but who were not a part of the Efiko pilot.

The table below shows the frequency and average scores (for Maths and English) of students before the challenge (BC), during the challenge (DC) and after the challenge (AC).

Across board the challenge increased the frequency of quizzes taken by students; frequency increased an average of 65% for Student A and 168.8% for student C. Based on the above, performance on Efiko was also improved as a result. After the pilot however, Student A did not continue playing Maths quizzes, although they had played Maths quizzes before and during the pilot. Student A focused primarily on English quizzes, thereby earning them an average score of 97.5%, based on English scores. On the other hand, Student B only played quizzes during the Efiko Challenge, and did not play before the challenge nor after the challenge.

The second table, shows a subset of winners in this category, but who were also participating in the Efiko pilot. Just as indicated above the figures here represent engagement and performance before, during and after the challenge.

From the above, it may be inferred that the Efiko challenge incentivised students to play more quizzes. Similar to the above, before the challenge Student A did not play any Math quizzes, however during the challenge Student A played Math quizzes and continued to do so even after the challenge ended. Frequency for Student A increased by 196%, Student B by 14.3%, while Student C had a 150% increase in engagement.

Finally, the table below shows the effects of students performance based on official academic records obtained before the Efiko pilot (BP) and during the Efiko pilot (BP) ***. It should be noted that the Efiko Ultimate Challenge was ongoing for 2 months out of the 14-month long pilot. 

The top performing students from the Efiko Challenge didn’t just experience an increase in performance while using Efiko, but also resulted in an improved performance at school. Based on the above data, it may be concluded that targeted incentives not only increased the use of Efiko by students, including students participating in the pilot and regular users of Efiko, but also served to improve students’ academic performance.

In next week’s report our analysis will be based on the performance of students from the second category of the Efiko Challenge. Earlier editions of this series can be read here and here.

About Efiko

Efiko is a mobile quiz platform for secondary school students designed to stimulate and personalise the learning experience beyond the school environment. Since inception in 2012, the Efiko user base has grown to a little over twenty-seven thousand users, across 32 different states nationwide.