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grainneoates

Innovating digital education — a SoBLE case study



Key benefits


  • Enabler of School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship’s digital literacy

  • Improved subject and exam performance: Using Quitch increased student success in the subject

  • More interactive experience on the student learning journey

  • Analytics to modify study content and enhance learning approach 

  • Provide better educations experience for students


The School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship (SoBLE) at Swinburne University undertook work to address high fail rates in first year business units, in particular targeting the first four units that students undertook in the BBus. If students failed one or all of these units the propensity to leave university escalated, thus creating an unacceptable attrition rate. SoBLE had four first year units that were classified as high fail (fail rates >20%) from the first year of the BBus. These units had fail rates ranging from 28% to 17%. A multi-pronged intervention was undertaken to improve pass rates for these subjects. Part of the approach was utilising Quitch for these first-year units to gamify learning for students. The key aim was to keep students engaged in the learning process whilst building confidence to enable higher success rates. Answering timed quiz questions about topics pertinent to the subjects via a mobile app on a train after a gym session might seem an unorthodox way of learning, but it keeps students engaged where they otherwise might have had declining interest.


Changing how students engage


Quitch was initially piloted in the first year accounting unit in the Bachelor of Business and several postgraduate finance units. These units traditionally had fail rates in the 30-40% range. The first year accounting unit had been through several restructures and changes of staff teaching into the unit. This unit posed a particular challenge to students and so Quitch was implemented with drastic results. Within a year of the implementation of Quitch, the fail rate had reduced to 20% and it has been maintained at a similar level, through COVID. This is a subject that contains a final examination which is linked to increasing the fail rate for the unit.


Quitch was initially introduced just prior to the pandemic and was downloaded by over 2200 students over the initial three year period. The overall analysis across multiple subjects indicates that students who engaged with Quitch received an increase of 13.3 marks compared with non-engaged users, which resulted in an approximately 14% mark increase for the first year accounting unit and 12% for postgraduate finance. This app became increasingly important during the height of the pandemic as students were most likely to disengage, fail or drop out of study.


Further, across the subjects, those who took more than three Quitch quizzes received, on average, a 19% higher mark.


Comments from students reflect the value of Quitch to the learning process.


“the most useful thing about Quitch is the information I have learned through reading, lectures, and collaborations are being revised through the app. As that information has not fully sunk in yet, it is a method of trying to turn information into knowledge.”

One of the benefits to educators is that through the back-end dashboard where they get real time feedback regarding which students are engaging, performance on quizzes and overall engagement with the quizzes and the subject. The information gleaned from the dashboard allows academics to customise material and quizzes to highlight areas that highlight where students need further development. Quitch also provides explanations to students regarding the correct answers and provides explanations and guidelines for improvement.


One of the issues with first year students is that they may lack confidence in the material and the assessment for their subjects. Quitch has been useful to allow students to build confidence over the semester, and whereas previously, there was a high drop off rate for final assessment, now students are more engaged and willing to complete the final assessment.


“Quitch has improved my confidence level towards the subject as it motivates me to study regularly as well as excites me for every new challenge. Also, it had acted as the best tool for revision before my mid- semester exam…”
“Great revising tool wished all courses used it”
“It has been very insightful overall and useful for revision”

The dashboard allows academics to monitor Quitch to ensure our aims of improving student engagement by delivering a high-quality learning experience are met. In a survey of students about their Quitch experience. 75.7% indicated that Quitch helped them with a better understanding of the unit contents, and 80.7% reported higher engagement with the unit contents after adopting Quitch in their learning practices.


“On a scale of 1-10, I would give it a 10 …. what I like the most on Quitch is we can attempt the questions multiple times, which is effective in strengthening our foundations in this unit.”
“...I felt safe working with Quitch as I would not be identified to my peers on the leaderboard”

Quitch was the logical choice for first year students as it is an evidence-based app, designed to motivate and connect with students. It allows students to track their own progress, whilst improving knowledge and creating a fun environment. It provides real-time feedback, identifies areas of difficulty, provides prompts when new material is available and gamifies the process of learning. 82% of our students agreed with this element of Quitch. Feedback from students regarding the gamified aspect of Quitch


“...loved that the app was like a game where I collected points. Truly motivating…”
“…I think Quitch is a fun and time-saving approach to learning.”

In conjunction with extra support from central services, Quitch was implemented in the four high fail first year units from semester 2, 2023. These units have been identified centrally as being high fail first year units and an action plan was put into place for semester 1, 2024.


Proof is in the pilot: Better performance in first year


The use of Quitch along with a range of other interventions has resulted in an improvement in student outcomes. If students engage more with first year units and pass these units they are far less likely to leave the course of the university. Increasing engagement and confidence results in students who are more connected to the subjects, their course and their friends.


The results for the four first year subjects can be seen below, with a marked reduction in fail rates (excluding NA).


Fail rates for four first year units.

Unit

Percentage decrease from semester 2 2023 to semester 1 2024

Unit A

5.64%

Unit B

7.25%

Unit C

10.37%

Unit D

5.26%

Participation in the Quitch program was voluntary but students were strongly encouraged to install the app on their phones and test their knowledge with the quizzes. The gamification included badges for students completing quizzes, a leaderboard where students were anonymised and a class average. This allowed students to undertake quizzes, learn and compare themselves to the average score and gain an incentive to complete further quizzes.

Quitch is now being used in more subjects and is being presented at the Australian and New Zealand Quality and Accreditation Conference in November as a way to increase student engagement, reduce attrition and create value for staff and students. Quitch has also demonstrated its value for improving pass rates at first year as well as postgraduate level units.





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