Abstract:

This study explored the impact of digital nudging strategies on the students’ application (app) engagement using an educational application. We used the CourseMIRROR educational app that prompted students to reflect on confusing and interesting aspects of each lecture throughout the semester. Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms are used in the application to scaffold students during the reflection writing process and generate reflection summaries of their reflections. These reflection summaries are made available to both instructors and students. Even though literature has abundantly discussed the effectiveness of educational apps on students learning, there have been concerns regarding the inability of educational apps to engage students. In this regard, prior studies have shown the effectiveness of behavioral interventions in keeping students engaged with educational apps. Drawing from the “Nudge theory,” the idea of behavioral science, we aim to use the reminder nudge strategy and explore its impact on students’ app engagement in the CourseMIRROR application. More specifically, the study will be guided by a research question: Do students receiving reminder nudges submit more reflections than those receiving no nudges? To inform the study, we introduced the CourseMIRROR application in three sections of an introductory first-year engineering course (N=129) at a large midwestern university. We used the students’ total number of reflection submissions in a semester as an app engagement measure. In the experiment, the students are divided into two groups: one group (i.e., treatment) will be exposed to a reminder nudge, and the second group(control) will receive no nudge. In the reminder nudge, students were nudged two times by the push notification after each lecture to remind them about the reflection submission. The first nudge was sent after the lecture ended, and the second nudge, after six hours to the students who didn’t submit the reflections by that time. We analyzed the data using an independent sample t-test between the number of students’ reflection submissions between treatment and control groups. The analysis result showed a statistically significant difference in the number of reflection submissions between both groups, with students in the treatment group submitting more reflections than the control group, t(127) = -2.31, p = 0.022. The result showed that digital nudging could enhance the students’ app engagement.

Keywords:

Nudge, mobile, engagement, experimental, technology.