IMPACT • CHALLENGE • INTERVENTION • RESOURCES
EdTech Hub uses a collaborative, design-based research approach to refine implementation
Highlights of impact from a research partnership between EdTech Hub, Women Educational Researchers of Kenya (WERK), and EIDU. Findings from a design-based research inform changes in EIDU’s implementation model including improving app colours, and light and increasing the number of phones per class.
IMAGE CREDIT: EIDU
The challenge ➝
Digital Personalised Learning (DPL) involves adapting the content of learning materials based on the needs of the learners. This is the technology that supports personalised learning and teaching at the level of the student.
Research on early-grade literacy and numeracy in Global South classrooms remains limited. To bridge this gap, EdTech Hub explored how classroom-based digital personalised learning can most effectively support early-grade numeracy and literacy outcomes in Kenya.
On top of the limited evidence, there was the challenge of integrating DPL tools in low-resourced educational settings. EdTech Hub’s study started by addressing this challenge in partnership with Women Educational Researchers in Kenya (WERK) and EIDU. The study examines the effective deployment of low-cost Android devices in pre-primary and primary classrooms which would find solutions for device-sharing in large classes (50+ learners), limiting access and engagement with the DPL platform.
Get to know the tool ➝
EIDU is an adaptive tool comprising an application with both a teacher-facing and learner-facing interface for early-grade (four to six years old) teaching and learning. This application is pre-installed on a low-cost Android device, with one to two devices distributed per classroom.
As of January 2024, 225,000 active learners from 4,000 pre-primary schools are enrolled in the tool. Teachers can create unique profiles for their learners, who use the tool daily for an average of five minutes each. The app provides digital learning units and evaluation exercises focusing on literacy and numeracy, organised into strands and sub-strands, and aligned with the Kenyan competency-based curriculum. The main purpose of EIDU’s personalisation is to enhance learning outcomes by customising content sequencing instead of customising the content itself.
The intervention ➝
The study’s first two rounds of design-based research (DBR) were carried out to address this challenge in June-July and October-November 2022. These cycles, conducted in six Mombasa schools, involved learners, teachers, head teachers, and early childhood development officers in interviews, focus groups, observation, and co-creation workshops.
Findings from these cycles indicated a need to move from a one-device-per-classroom model to multiple devices per classroom. Consequently, a second phase of DBR was undertaken to explore the impact of adding one additional device per classroom, employing a lesson study methodology to assess implications on teaching, learning, and classroom management.
The impact ➝
The DBR process enabled EdTech Hub and WERK, practitioners such as Kenyan pre-primary teachers, and implementers to generate insights that led to tangible improvements in the EIDU app, including enhanced teacher control over content and better user interface for classroom management.
The refined two-device-per-classroom model — from one device — has been deployed in a randomised controlled trial in Murang’a County to evaluate its impact on emergent numeracy and literacy outcomes. In our interaction with teachers and learners in Murang’a, we have observed indicators that children are enjoying the lessons and improving their literacy. Most learners can now read and correctly pronounce English words. This evidence-based approach is set to inform the rollout of the EIDU DPL platform across all 46 counties in Kenya by 2025, ensuring a scalable and effective intervention for improving education outcomes.
Curated resources ➝
- Evaluating Digital Personalised Learning Tools in Kenya: a new research study in collaboration with EIDU
- Methods for Investigating Digital Personalised Learning in Kenya: Utilising A/B Testing to Evaluate Software Adaptivity Features
- Algorithmic design in EdTech: Investigating adaptivity for learners and teachers in a digital personalised learning tool in Kenya
- Rapid Evidence Review: Technology-supported personalised learning
- The effectiveness of technology-supported personalised learning in low- and middle-income countries: A meta-analysis
