Dive Brief:
- Ball State Achievements is a mobile application created for Ball State University Pell Grant recipients that offers motivation by rewarding them for behaviors that are likely to boost their retention.
- Campus Technology reports that students earn “Experience Points” and a form of currency that can be used in the campus Starbucks and bookstore by participating in extracurricular activities, going to career center events, and making healthy life choices.
- The first year of the program was grant-funded, and administrators hope to eventually pay for it by increasing retention enough to boost the university’s performance-based funding from the state of Indiana.
Dive Insight:
Ball State’s app was designed for both iOS and Android, and it saw 50% adoption within a single semester. Motivating students by rewarding them for participating in activities that improve their chances at success seems to work. Ball State committed to running the program for three years in order to collect enough data to effectively evaluate the results. If they are promising, the university may end up marketing the app.
Indiana is not alone in awarding performance-based funding, and it seems to be a trend additional states are adopting for more nuanced accountability. With that in mind, now is the time for institutions to consider programs that improve student outcomes.