Enhanced Student Engagement through Supervised Assessment: Evidence from Kenya

In-app assessments are increasingly used by EdTech programs to measure students' proficiency and guide instructional decisions. Student engagement in these assessments is crucial for generating reliable learning signals; however, efforts to increase student engagement in platform-based assessments often impose additional demands on teachers. To explore an optimal assessment design, we implemented supervised assessments in which a teacher is present while students complete the assessment. We find that supervised assessments significantly increase student engagement, as evidenced by longer average assessment durations and a substantial reduction in timed-out or aborted sessions. At the same time, the number of classes participating in the assessment decreases slightly. These findings highlight a tradeoff between assessment quality and participation rates, and suggest that supervision improves data quality primarily through increased student engagement.