As part of start-up funding from the SMWK, an eleven-person team has created the basis for the development of a smartphone app over the past six months.
As part of start-up funding from the SMWK, our team of eleven has spent the last six months creating the basis for the development of a smartphone app, which is intended to help students get started with their studies on the one hand and to support them with time and goal management over the course of their studies in the long term on the other.
In order to best adapt the study app to our future users, we conducted interviews with student advisors and discussions with pupils, students and drop-outs on the question of which prerequisites contribute to a successful degree. For our interviewees, one skill was central to a successful course of study: goal orientation. If students have a clear goal in mind, they are better able to motivate themselves to study and stick to the timetable, which increases their chances of successfully completing their studies. University students from various disciplines named the knowledge to be acquired, personal development, social contacts and career preparation, the goal of "doing well in their studies" and getting a Master's place as important goals that motivate them.
The study app is intended to support students in achieving their study goals in the future. For this reason, the app offers a time structure based on the respective module catalog of the study subject for the concrete implementation of goals on the one hand and a variety of functions that make it easier to cope with everyday study life on the other. To this end, an initial prototype of the app will be developed by the end of the year as part of the ongoing project and a software concept for the full implementation of the app will be created. This implementation and the evaluation of the study app on the basis of user tests are to take place in a second project phase, the financing of which is unfortunately still unclear. Nevertheless, we are sticking to our goal of supporting students in achieving their study goals.