Motivating Middle School Students to Take Tests
Students were not taking diagnostics seriously, answering questions randomly. These false efforts were affecting school scores and students were being placed in content that was too easy for them.
Outcome:
We prototyped different messages to give to students that might motivate them to try harder on tests. We found that middle school students paid the most attention and listened to high school students who adults didn’t believe in. Students paid attention to the student lead messaging and reported more desire to try hard.
Our Team:
Meredith Wilson, Christine Zanchi, Elliott Hedman
High School Students are your MC
Before: Entertaining Animations give Instructions
Our client was planning on bringing in an animation studio to make an entertaining pitch to try hard on the test. Students didn’t believe the prototyped animation nor care.
After: High School Students Command Attention
When we prototyped “real” student’s stories students were leaning in and could remember every piece of information. Middle School students aspire to be high school students care deeply about what they had to say. We recommended all messaging be conducted from a high school student.
Emphasize “Prove Yourself”
Before: “It will Be Easy”
Initial messaging revolved around downplaying the challenge - “you can do this” and “this will be easy”. When students ran into a hard problem they felt even dumb and misunderstood.
After: “I don’t give up”
Students were much more motivated around messaging that centered around “I don’t give up” and “proving yourself”. Students believed they were great and wanted messaging that believed in that too.
Students are quitting because of anxiety, not lack of motivation
Before: “Try Hard”
With eye tracking and MOXO sensors we saw children were giving up after encountering problems that were too difficult. Their coping mechanism was to not try hard afterwards.
After: “Getting Something Wrong is Okay”
Rather than emphasizing the importance of answering questions correctly, we instead emphasized that if you can’t get a problem correct, it’s okay - some of these questions almost no 8th grader can answer correctly.
Here’s What to say to a Middle School Test Taker
We took all of our prototype insights and produced this short movie. Our tests showed it was highly effective at resonating and encouraging students to try hard on the diagnostic test.
If the narrator doesn't believe in the student, the student does not trust them.
If you say "this test will be easy" students will think you don't know them or think they are dumb.
Proving a teacher wrong, that you can do it, is a highly engaging and motivating archetype.
We tried various academic interventions to motivate children and they had no effect as children struggled to create aspirations..
Proving to a teacher that they underestimated you is highly motivating.
While students were more relatable, teachers were more knowledgeable, so we recommended having a teacher alongside the student.
Our main question became, how do we create a narrator the student believes in and wants to listen to.
Videos of high school students were much more interesting. So much so, we recommended future lessons may want to have high school students teach middle school students.
In our early prototypes we presented various pieces of messaging and it was the student stories that were the most remembered.
Students were fast guessing to avoid anxiety, not because of apathy.