Keep up in the classroom with Kahoot!
Norwegian-based company fosters learning success
Photo courtesy of Kahoot!
Kahoot! is a digital education platform designed to make learning fun and effective for all ages.
Kahoot!
Oslo
A recent meta-analysis [the statistical combination of results from two or more separate studies] of independent, peer-reviewed studies reveals classroom use of Kahoot! improves, on average, student performance on tests by a full letter grade.
The study was released by WiKIT. With its headquarters based at the University of Stavanger, WiKIT is a network of 950+ EdTech researchers across 28 countries, to elevate academia-industry partnerships.
“With the results from this meta-analysis of independent, peer-reviewed studies on the effect of Kahoot!, educators, and administrators can now be even more confident that using the Kahoot! platform improves students’ academic performance,” said Eilert Hanoa, CEO of Kahoot!.
“For a decade, millions of students and teachers worldwide have relied on Kahoot! to create, discover, and play game-based learning experiences that supercharge student engagement. This new research offers educators strong evidence that Kahoot!, works beyond creating engagement—it directly improves student learning.”
Elevating learning with Kahoot!’s research-backed solutions
Since its official launch in 2013, Kahoot! has been backed by a strong base of research and certifications, including the most recent International Certification of Evidence of Impact in Education Silver Badge and Every Student Succeeds Act Level III certification.
For this meta-analysis report, WiKIT systematically analyzed 155 peer-reviewed research articles involving Kahoot! All were conducted by independent researchers around the world.
Based on strict quality criteria, 16 articles—with 2,070 participants across primary, secondary, and tertiary education—were included in the analysis to test the quantitative effect of Kahoot! on learning outcomes.
By standardizing and converting the various learning outcomes measurements in the 16 articles to effect sizes, WiKIT estimated the average effect of Kahoot! on learning outcomes.
The conclusion was clear and significant: using Kahoot! platform improved students’ learning by 0.72 standard deviations. In practical terms, this improvement equates to shifting a student from the 50th to the 72nd percentile or increasing performance on a typical test by a full letter grade.
The WiKIT report provides comprehensive evidence for Kahoot! as a powerful learning technology across a range of educational contexts. WiKIT also recommends updating the effect size as even more high-quality, peer-reviewed studies appear in the years to come.
Important step for evidence-based learning technology
Evidence-based EdTech has seen growing demand across the education sector in recent years, with a drive to invest in high-quality, proven solutions that meet the needs of both educators and learners.
“The high number of published research studies about Kahoot!’s quiz games speaks to the popularity of Kahoot! globally. WiKIT’s meta-analysis synthesizes the effect of these independent studies, showing significant learning benefits of using Kahoot!” said Professor Natalia Kucirkova, co-CEO of WiKIT and co-author of the report.
“It is great to see Kahoot!’s dedication to evaluating the research conducted with its products and overall support for evidence that is increasingly demanded by the EdTech sector to deliver effective educational experiences for all learners.”
About Kahoot!
The Norwegian-based company Kahoot! has the mission “to make learning awesome!” They assert: “We want to empower everyone, including children, students, and employees to unlock their full learning potential. Our learning platform makes it easy for any individual or corporation to create, share, and host learning sessions that drive compelling engagement.”
Launched in 2013, Kahoot!’s vision is to build the leading learning platform in the world. Since launch, Kahoot! has hosted hundreds of millions of learning sessions with over 10 billion participants (non-unique) in more than 200 countries and regions. The Kahoot! Group includes Clever, the leading U.S. K-12 EdTech learning platform, and the learning apps DragonBox, Poio, Drops, Actimo, Motimate, and Whiteboard.fi. The Kahoot! Group is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Spain, and Poland.
To learn more, visit kahoot.com.
See also “Kahoot! game-based learning platform an international hit” Michael Kleiner, The Norwegian American, May 8, 2020.
This article originally appeared in the August 2024 issue of The Norwegian American.
