challenge learners to develop proficiency on a drill or course before a specific deadline. See the below image. A one-off challenge manages the proficiency of the learner on the drill or course between the study start date and the review date. It is important to set a decreasing minimum on a One-off challenge in order for the user's proficiency to meet the set level on the review date. 

challenge learners to maintain their proficiency at a high level after having realized the Minimum Proficiency at the Review Date. The permanent challenge manages the proficiency between the study start date till the moment that the learner is disconnected from the course or that the challenge is stopped by the organization. So this includes the period before ánd after the review date.

In addition to One-Off and Permanent challenges, the Recurring Challenge is a new feature that helps users achieve a specific competency within a preset timeframe and cycle. Just like the other two challenges, you can also set the start date and the duration, but in the case of the Periodic Challenge, the set period repeats. Examples include reaching 100% proficiency every month, six-months, a year or two years. Or achieving 80% proficiency in a subject that is only relevant during the summer months.

Open the group and go to ‘Challenges’; here, click on ‘Add’ to define a challenge for the drill(s) or for a course.

The minimum proficiency level is the target proficiency percentage that you want learners to achieve. You can enter any value, but there are a few recommendations.

 

• When creating a drill or a course that contains only need-to-know information, meaning all learning elements are essential for the learner, we recommend setting the Minimum Proficiency at 100%. This will encourage the participants to complete the entire drill or course, preventing any omissions in their knowledge, awareness or skills. The minimum profeciency of 100% is also important for students, as lacking any knowledge due to unfinished drill may lead to the student failing a test. A proficiency of 100% shows that people are expert on the topic for which you have invited them to learn, anchor and retain via a drill.

• When creating a drill or a course that contains similar learning elements on the same topic, it is then OK to set the Minimum Proficiency at a lower value (eg 80%). For example, a drill that only has questions on ’multiplications up to 10’ and the learner has shown to be competent on 80% of the drill, the probability here is high that the learner is also proficient on the remaining 20% of the drill. In this case a lower Minimum Proficiency value will not have a negative impact on the job performance or test results if the learner does not master the drill or course up to a 100%.

Knowledge, awareness and skills will decline if they are not maintained and developed. The Drillster app calculates the decline in proficiency if it is not maintained (the forgetting curve). It is impossible to maintain 100% proficiency at all times, as the forgetting curve begins to take effect shortly after practising stops. Therefore, ensure that proficiency has a reasonable amount of time to decline before a learner is reminded to brush up on their knowledge.

The falling minimum is the proficiency percentage to which proficiency can drop before the learner is reminded to refresh their skills. The falling minimum can be any level, but we recommend never setting it below 60%.

In the early 1960s, Paul Pimsleur (a scholar of applied linguistics) discovered that repetition is most effective when there is still at least a 60% chance that the material will be remembered. Once the probability of correctly recalling previously learnt material has fallen below 60%, memorising the material will take just as much time and effort as it did the first time it was learnt.

So, to make learning as effective as possible for your participants and to ensure they have the right knowledge and skills to perform well at work or pass an exam, never use a falling minimum lower than 60%.

If the challenge is set at 100%, the falling minimum could, for example, be 70%. If an individual participant’s proficiency in a drill or course falls below the falling minimum (in this example, 70%), the system will report that the challenge is no longer being met. A notification can be sent to the participant inviting them to refresh their knowledge and bring it back up to the Minimum Proficiency level.

Challenges have a Start date and an Evaluation date.

There are two options:

1. Fixed for all group members

   The Study Start Date and the Review Date will be the same for each and every member of a group. We recommend using this parameter if no additional members are added to the group after the Study Start Date. If existing users have for example 4 weeks to meet the challenge, and a new member would be added to the group 2 weeks after the Study Start Date, then this additional user would only have 2 weeks to realize the challenge. If all members need to realize a specific % on the Review Date because of an exam or because of specific tasks they have to perform for their job, then a challenge that is ‘Fixed for all group members’ is the ideal option to choose.

2. Per individual group member.

   This setting enables you to give each group member to have a fixed amount of time to realize the challenge.  The value can be a number of days, weeks or months. If you choose for example ‘1 month’ and the Minimum Proficiency is set at 100%,  then each group member will get 1 month to go realize 100% proficiency on the drill or course. All users that are already members of the group will have 1 month from the moment that the challenge is created. Future group members will have 1 month to go from 0% to 100% from the moment that they are added to the group. 

   So an evaluation that is individual per group member has an individual Review Date that is dependent on the moment that the member was added to the group.

   All notifications and status reporting that was explained in the previous sections, also apply to the case where a challenge per individual group member is set. 

   Attention! To activate the evaluation per individual group member, you have to select the field ‘relative to join date’. 

   If your organization uses the Drillster event notification API, you have to select the ‘set through API integration’ option. This means that the activation of the evaluation per individual group member is sent via an API call from the organization system (LMS, HRM, Compliance system, etc.) to the Drillster system.