Enhancing PMI's Assessments with Gamified Learning

In partnership with NineTwoThree, PMI transformed the way students prepare for its certification exam by adopting gamification. We built a new assessment together that reduced test time by 80% and offered instant feedback. See how we improved the learning experience for students while enhancing PMI's educational offerings.

Concept

The Project Management Institute (PMI) is a global leader in project management. It offers highly regarded certifications, such as the Project Management Professional (PMP) and the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM). PMI provides resources, research, and networking opportunities for individuals and organizations involved in project management.

PMI’s extensive materials span from the basics to the latest advancements for project management. In addition to creating robust classes about project management, they also created study materials to help students study for certification exams. These exams were very time-intensive and held students back from getting feedback on where they needed to spend time studying to ensure they passed the test.

Challenge

While PMI’s educational arsenal was robust, the evaluation method wasn’t optimal. The only way for students to test their knowledge was through a practice test which was as long as the current test. That means it would take students 3 hours to finish the test and find out where they need to study more. Due to this challenge, PMI realized their practice test experience could be optimized based to:

Allow students

to have the ability to evaluate their grasp of materials often

Give Students

real-time feedback so they can understand their areas of improvement

PMI first wanted to use machine learning to create personalized, responsive assessments. After meeting NineTwoThree, they realized they didn’t have the right type of data or budget to solve these challenges in the way they envisioned. NineTwoThree had a solution inspired by Udemy that would solve this problem in a much more elegant way.

production

To gain a better understanding of the application, view the video below which provides a comprehensive demonstration of its features and functionalities.

Solution

NineTwoThree, renowned for our expertise in crafting solutions through the clever use of technology, proposed an ingenious gamification method. The essence of this solution was to craft 60-70 questions spanned diverse domains and levels of difficulty. Our engineering team then implemented a dynamic system where the difficulty of subsequent questions increased based on the student’s current performance.

This solution can efficiently determine a student’s grasp of material in 40 minutes. The new practice test also gives students instant feedback after each question so they can immediately understand their errors.

By applying gamification to the assessment, NineTwoThree cut down the time it takes to complete a practice test and assess a student’s grasp of the material by 80%, and do it at a fraction of the cost of a machine learning project.

Impact

Through NineTwoThree's innovative gamification strategy, PMI's assessment mechanism underwent a transformative upgrade. What was once a formidable task morphed into an exciting, rewarding learning pathway. This revamped process allowed students to frequently monitor their progress without feeling burdened, courtesy of the shortened evaluation duration and instantaneous feedback mechanism. By intertwining education with entertainment, PMI guaranteed that their students are well-prepared and inspired to confront actual project management scenarios.