EdTech services are becoming more widely used by both academic and corporate sectors. The digitalization of education started a while ago, and it gained a powerful boost in 2020. Due to the circumstances, schools, universities, and companies were to adapt their learning and training curriculums to the available online methods. Despite inconveniences and inequality concerns, this experience reminded (and to some, revealed) the true potential of educational technology software.
The present climate opens immense possibilities before EdTech software companies. However, the competition also becomes more intense. The creation of a product that will attract attention comes with thorough research, careful implementation of logic and features, and, of course, lots of testing.
Our CTO has already shared some information about e-learning testing in her blog. In particular, she explained what to focus on when testing educational platforms, tools, and technologies. In this article, we gathered some of the latest trends and educational technology insights, explaining how QA & software testing help to keep up with the market.
International EdTech companies can be sure to find users all over the world. According to UNESCO research, the global pandemic has uninterrupted classroom learning for at least 9 out of 10 students worldwide. 191 countries have closed their schools, affecting over 1.5 billion students from pre-primary to tertiary education. With companies switching to remote or hybrid work models for an uncertain period, the need for education technology keeps increasing.
This surge in technology adoption triggered the increase in downloads of educational apps by 130% in the USA, EdTech Digest reports. The numbers across other countries can vary, but the general tendency is clear. Institutions are forced to develop the infrastructure that will allow for efficient on-site, remote, and, potentially, mixed learning.
Meanwhile, the popularity of MOOC and online training keeps increasing due to other reasons, too. In particular, such courses are known for affordability and convenience. Online training is significantly less expensive. Besides, students don’t need to relocate, and neither family life nor work becomes an obstacle for learning. Finally, online programs allow students to finish education in less time compared to classroom studies. The feedback from MOOC users proves that online certifications are positively accepted by employers and improve career opportunities.
Learners’ backgrounds vary greatly. Some have a fast internet connection and top-notch devices, while others use low-end PCs and older smartphones that may not support updates anymore. The task for e-learning development companies is to make their software affordable for everyone. In other words, it is crucial to ensure compatibility with various devices. For this, a QA team needs to check how an application works on different platforms, OS, screens, browsers, and their versions. It ensures that user experience isn’t determined solely by a device.
The surveys show that poor audio quality provokes frustration, irritation, annoyance, and lack of confidence that lead to stress and mental fatigue. On average, a user loses 29 minutes per week due to the poor sound quality on voice calls, EPOS reports. 65% of respondents admit that they are forced to spend extra time on tasks due to the poor sound quality.
These facts are relatable for e-learning, too. Audio quality, to a great extent, determines whether students get the correct information, can answer questions, and avoid miscommunication.
It is essential to run functional testing and pay close attention to audio features. In particular, QA specialists should run live testing for teacher and student functionalities. It should involve different numbers of users joining a lesson and test software under varying network conditions.
The 2018 Pearson research reveals that GenZ chooses YouTube as the preferred way of learning, with 59% reporting so. In other words, companies oriented toward the next generation of learners should seriously consider including videos in their resources. Even short relevant clips help to reduce mental fatigue and increase retention by up to 80%.
Besides, online platforms practice making videos more interactive. For example, to prevent passive viewing and track learners’ progress better, course providers integrate quizzes in videos. A user can continue viewing the lecture only if they answer the question correctly. Such practices make studying more effective and boost learners’ engagement.
Videos can be used as stand-alone learning materials or integrated into the course curriculum as supplements. The good news is that video technology is affordable nowadays. Creating materials of proper quality is not difficult. However, testing how video content fits in the functionality is crucial.
For example, a video player should display the content correctly on all platforms and browsers. The same goes for the rest of the features – play, pause, and other controls, quality and audio settings, and the extended interactive functionality. Again, it is verified by testing software on different physical devices.
A Canadian teacher used Minecraft to hook his third-grade students on social studies. Headlines like this can cause admiration or skepticism, but gamification works, and the studies prove it. Whether because games are embedded in modern culture or the abundance of information causes cognitive tension, people digest serious material easier through games and simulations.
Moreover, the 2018 study of the usage of serious games in education reveals that game-based learning benefits educators, too. Teachers report feeling more motivated and helpful when using gamification during lessons. Besides, it is much more efficient to present dry information through entertaining and relatable examples.
Things like ratings, leaderboards, and bonuses also tend to boost motivation and competitiveness. As a result, learning turns into a competition rather than a chore. Gamification isn’t an answer to all of your questions. And still, it can help to deal with some engagement-related concerns frequently associated with online learning.
We aren’t saying that education should be all entertainment. Nevertheless, gamification helps students understand complicated subjects and stay engaged for a longer time. For educational resources, ultimately, it means higher retention, positive reviews, and frequent recommendations. But of course, it all should be properly implemented and tested before the launch.
Feature testing is essential for gamification. A QA specialist should check a variety of positive and negative scenarios, trying to model every possible way a user can interact with a particular feature. For example, they can:
Another important aspect to test is User Interface (UI). A user will get lots of graphical elements to interact with a platform, and they should function well. Buttons, input fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, tabs, etc. should each perform the functions they were programmed to do. On top of that, the team has to verify layout consistency.
It is also significant to pay attention to UX – user experience. For starters, you will need to check whether navigation is clear, texts are readable, buttons are easy to click, and notifications are in places and correct. An application should be intuitive and easy to use. As for the rest, a company can refine product design, looking for the best-performing fonts and color combinations, after it goes live.
Studies quote different data regarding the average attention span of a present-day user. Still, they agree on one thing: users easily get overwhelmed and distracted. Under such circumstances, providing concentrated information in the form of brief lessons often works more effectively than long lectures. The appropriate format already exists, and it is known as microlearning.
Microlearning implies delivering information in small bursts – modules with a set of 3-5 short lections that take around five minutes to complete. Brief and straight-to-point content is engaging and can be accessed when a learner has a few minutes of free time. That’s where mobile learning comes in.
Microlearning is a principle used in a wide variety of educational applications. For some, a waiting line or a short break is the only time for learning. Having all the educational materials stored neatly in your pocket helps a lot. That’s why educational technology services with dedicated apps or at least good mobile versions make our lives a lot easier.
It is crucial to run mobile testing for web apps and websites. A QA company has an opportunity to run tests on a wide range of real devices, ensuring that all smartphones offer access to the products and the same complete user experience. As for microlearning, software testers should check the learning flow and core features before you hand the app to real users.
While the use of educational technology is meant to make education more accessible to people from different locations and backgrounds, it turned out to be quite a challenge, especially for school and university education.
A study by McKinsey determined that minority students were about three to five months behind in learning after the pandemic. For regular students, it was a one to three months gap. Unfortunately, it is not surprising. Schools are built around in-class experience. All investments, including those in EdTech, are allocated for on-premise enhancement. It left a great share of students without access to technologies that were crucial for studying.
Another challenge was to use the available resources and tools for teaching students with physical or cognitive impairments. Technologies like voice assistants, voice-to-text tools, color inversion, screen settings and adjustments, as well as detailed user guidelines, are essential to provide the same experience for all learners.
While schools are to deal with an issue of equal access to technology, educational tech companies should ensure inclusivity from their end. Put it simply, EdTech solutions should be designed with different users in mind. It implies already mentioned compatibility with a wide range of devices and access for learners with disabilities. The regulations regarding the latter are easily found in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. A software tester uses this document to check for compliance during accessibility testing.
User research and analytics are at the core of the personalized experience. With the right digital tools, it becomes much easier to gain insights that will help to deliver better user experiences. At first, it seems that personalization implies face-to-face communication and is better done in class. Well, it may be easier to understand student well-being overall while watching non-verbal signs that aren’t always evident during online communication.
With digital tools, however, it is easier to access growth data about each student in dynamics through competencies and days. Assessment tools and LMS allow educators to gain insights into students’ performance and estimate the results on the next assessment, even if it is months away. It becomes possible thanks to adaptive learning technology that allows providing lessons and assessments of the right difficulty at the right time to every student.
EdTech solutions are getting more sophisticated. Developing such technologies from scratch will require solid AI and ML testing, where every model should be checked and evaluated. If we are speaking about integrating an already existing solution into a developed product, a QA team will need to run integration testing to observe how the program merges with the EdTech solution.
It was common for educators to use multiple tools, each for a particular purpose. Very often, different types of educational technology come from different EdTech software companies and aren’t always easily integrated into the digital ecosystem. The bigger this array gets, the more complicated it becomes to store data centralized and make good use of it. As a result, institutions started moving towards multifunctionality and interoperability.
A good educational technology example illustrating this trend is BYJU’S partnership with Google. The Indian startup has been all over the news lately, after planning to expand to international markets and becoming the most valuable startup in the country. Back to the integration between the two platforms, it is a way to offer users a collaborative and personalized solution that will cover the majority if not all the needs for classroom organization and management.
A company doesn’t necessarily need to create an all-in-one solution. It may be enough to offer integrations with other tools. If you decide to go this way, a QA team will need to run interoperability testing. Clients often get it confused with integration testing, but these are two different things.
Integration is about investigating how different components of a system work together. Meanwhile, interoperability checks whether two independent systems function correctly together. In other words, QA engineers are to check how data from one application is transferred to another one. Such solutions come from different suppliers or at least different product lines. Tests are based on the functionality experienced by a user and involve functional interfaces, such as API.
Traditionally, a user pays for a course they choose. After the purchase, a learner can access the content, complete tasks, receive feedback, etc. Lately, however, more educational platforms have started introducing subscription-based learning models. In this case, instead of buying a single course, a person pays for a monthly or yearly subscription and gets access to all the materials. Each model has its pros and cons, and it’s up to a provider to decide what works best for them.
Well, if a website offers to purchase something, the payment functionality needs to be tested regardless of the chosen model. Most likely, it will be payment gateway testing since the platforms use specialized third-party software for payment processing. Nevertheless, an EdTech platform still has to ensure that:
Along with numerous benefits introduced by EdTech, there are some common concerns communicated by both educators and learners. As you could have guessed, security is one of those. On the one hand, we can benefit from AI assessment, personalization of learning experience, simulations and gamification, etc. On the other hand, there is a risk of data leaks, cyberattacks, ransomware or malware attacks, and other disruptive events.
Never release an EdTech product without testing it for security. QA specialists act as white hackers, looking for vulnerabilities and ways to break the system from the outside the way attackers would do. It helps to detect the weak points so that the developers can fix them.
The best educational technology isn’t always the feature-rich one. It is the one that works perfectly. We all know how serious it is to test banking and medical software that deals with large volumes of sensitive data and human lives. Educational technology should be treated with the same high level of responsibility.
EdTech is one of the tools used to train future specialists in all fields. The efficiency of technological solutions used for their education to a great extent determines how effective their learning outcomes will be. So if you are planning to release the next best EdTech solution, make sure the developed functionality resonates with the users and has been tested well before the release.
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