©Benedikt Plate / Universität Bremen
WiWiNow: Business Studies Made Easy
Uni app brings innovative, technological solution to classes
Preparing for the next exam in a playful manner, tracking your own revision time, and comparing your success to that of others in a ranking. All of this is offered by the app from the Faculty of Business Studies & Economics. And do you know the best thing about it? A study has shown that those who use the app have measurable success in learning.
“App usage has a positive effect on exam results. That means that students who seriously use the app attain significantly higher grades in the exam in comparison to those who do not use the app consistently,” explains Professor Jochen Zimmermann when talking about the results of an accompanying study. Said study was carried out together with the involved researchers Florian Johannsen, Martin Knipp, Thomas Loy, and Johannes Voshaar. Zimmermann and his team have developed the WiWiNow app. With the application, the Faculty of Business Studies & Economics is “consequently” implementing digitalization of teaching.
App Users Attain Higher Exam Grades
The app was used for the first time in the accounting class “Rechnungswesen und Abschluss” in the winter semester 2020/21. There was wide-spread acceptance of the app among students. Of the 730 people who took part in the final class exam, 668 registered in the WiWiNow app. In a survey, 70 percent of the 120 participating students confirmed that the app increased their motivation to learn. 78 percent would recommend the app to others.
Lasting Motivation Thanks to Gamification
©Benedikt Plate / Universität Bremen
The app poses exercise and quiz tasks as well as tools for self-organization , for example, individual revision tracking, a class overview, and a calendar export tool for important appointments with a subsequent reminder function based on push notifications. Game-like elements, such as a quiz that needs to be completed and a ranking, contribute to students’ lasting motivation. Furthermore, lectures are made available digitally, as are learning videos, within the app.
The app even has a place in lecture halls. Interactive surveys during the classes make direct, low-threshold student participation possible.
WiWiNow Project
The WiWiNow digitalization project is an interdisciplinary project between the economists and business data processing specialists at the University of Bremen and Schmalkalden University of Applied Science. The project has the aim of transferring innovative, technological solutions to teaching and learning in a university context. The app is free for iOS and Android systems.
Further Information:
Voshaar, Johannes and Knipp, Martin and Loy, Thomas R. and and Zimmermann, Jochen and Johannsen, Florian, The Impact of Using a Mobile App on Learning Success in Accounting Education (August 4, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3923682 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3923682
Johannsen, Florian; Knipp, Martin; Loy, Thomas; Voshaar, Johannes; and Zimmermann, Jochen, “A Mobile App to Support Students in the “Transition-In” Phase” (2021). ECIS 2021 Research-in-Progress Papers. 11. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2021_rip/11
WiWiNow project: www.uni-bremen.de/en/controlling/wiwinow
Up2date article: https://up2date.uni-bremen.de/en/teaching-studies/wow-wiwinow
