In our last publication, we looked at the effects targeted incentives had on the engagement levels of students on Efiko, and ultimately the impact that had on academic performance. We began with an analysis of the data gathered during the Efiko Ultimate Challenge, a 2-month long competition to reward top performers on the Efiko platform. In the last report, we addressed the first category of challenge winners, which were selected from top performing members on Efiko nationwide. This week, we look at winners from the second category of the Challenge, which was only open to the 750 students participating in the Efiko pilot.

Each month of the Challenge, the top 10 performing students across the 3 states were selected and rewarded with Efiko branded prizes. Winners were selected based on performance on Efiko, without regard to how many times they played. To start with, we review the frequency and average performance (in Maths and English language) of the winning students comparing their engagement levels before, during and after the Efiko Ultimate Challenge.

The table above shows that the Efiko Ultimate Challenge did indeed increase the number of times students played quizzes. Engagement levels rose as high as 180% in some cases.  Similar to the first group, the Challenge and rewards incentivised students and encouraged them to play more quizzes. After the pilot however, and perhaps not unexpected engagement levels dipped significantly. But what result did the Challenge have on academic performance?

Student performance was subsequently assessed based on academic results obtained before and during the pilot. The table compares students academic results before the pilot (BP), during the pilot (DP) and their average score on the Efiko app. The data shows that while some students experienced an increase in performance, the percentage change was however not nearly as significant, when compared to the other group of users who were some of the students that experienced some of the highest levels of academic improvement while using Efiko. Student C and D experienced no change in academic performance, and a decline in performance respectively.

The purpose of Efiko is to provide students with access to curated content, and by means of a social platform promote self-study, which will in turn improve student performance. But how much of an effect did the number of times students played positively impact their results? In the chart below we compare the cumulative frequency and scores of the winners of the challenge and compare their data before, during and after the Challenge.

While the challenge undoubtedly served to drive up engagement levels, this only resulted in a temporary spike as engagement levels dropped by as much as 147.4% after the challenge. This serves to answer the first half of the objective – whether targeted incentives could increase the adoption of Efiko by students. The second half of the objective, sought to find out whether targeted incentives could result in improved student performance. Based on the above data, performance levels rose by 4.5% during the pilot and dropped by 16.3% after the pilot. Furthermore, comparing the performance of the top 3 student winners above (based on percentage change) against the performance of overall top performing students on Efiko shows that while the first group achieved an average of a 0.7% improvement in academic performance, the latter group had an average of 16.5%.

In conclusion, the likely recommendation will be to tie rewards to more long term goals such as students’ end of term performance, as opposed to performance over a short period of time. This may yield a more sustainable uptake in student engagement levels by reinforcing the practice of using Efiko for personal study.

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.