Here’s what you should do differently…
Leaderboards are commonly used by educators to engage students in various educational situations. However, most implementations fail to truly reap the benefits of learner engagement because they make the same mistakes over and over again. This article highlights why leaderboards work, addresses common misconceptions about leaderboards and student engagement, and provides a new mental model for thinking about how to implement leaderboards in your eLearning platform.
Why leaderboards are so effective
Leaderboards create effective social interaction and competition on e-learning platforms by comparing students to their peers. By ranking students according to metrics closely aligned with learning outcomes, educators create effective motivational tools that encourage students to do their best.
Leaderboards not only motivate students to achieve better results by ranking students alongside others in a similar position, but also remind students that they are not alone. This is especially important for e-learning providers who primarily facilitate learning when face-to-face learning is not possible. Self-study can be a lonely journey, and leaderboards address some of the space left by the lack of a classroom-based environment.
Why most leaderboards fail
The main reasons why most leaderboard implementations fail to engage learners effectively are:
disproportionate size
The core of the leaderboard is actually very simple. Rank students in order based on specific metrics closely related to success. The problem begins when educators assume that this basic approach that works with classroom-sized cohorts will also work on large-scale e-learning platforms operating at a much larger scale.
As the number of learners in the leaderboard increases, engagement typically decreases proportionately. This is a natural consequence of larger leaderboards, which make it harder for students to feel connected to their peers, leading to a disconnect with the concept of the leaderboard itself. Additionally, as leaderboards get larger and larger, it becomes an increasingly difficult experience for new learners, creating a “cold start” problem where new learners who join the leaderboard later than other students have engagement rates that lag behind those who have a head start.
“All Time” Leaderboard Issue
New learners are similarly discouraged from trying to climb the rankings on “all-time” leaderboards that don’t have a set end date. This makes the “cold start” problem worse over time, affecting not only new learners but also regular learners with different levels of time commitment. In a never-ending leaderboard, only the top 1% of students ultimately participate, leaving most students feeling excluded.
balance problem
E-learning providers often use leaderboards to rank users by a combination of factors that take into account a user’s overall progress with the platform. Viewing notes, watching lessons, and answering questions are some of the student interactions that e-learning platforms aim to capture within the leaderboard logic.
The problem begins when the assumptions built into the calculations that rank users are out of proportion to reality. For example, an e-learning provider may decide to give equal weight to watching a video compared to viewing notes. However, video content is actually much more engaging and leads to a deeper understanding of a topic than written notes.
As a result, students who watch more videos than their peers feel like they understand better than those who don’t, but the leaderboards don’t reflect that. On the other hand, students who quickly read their notes many times without writing details will progress much faster in the rankings. Such an imbalance in leaderboard rankings can separate students from both sides and make them seem unnecessary.
better approach
segmentation
Many of the leaderboard problems discussed in this article can be solved, at least in part, with a proper student segmentation strategy. Segmentation is about finding what the “right” number of students have in common and grouping them into smaller, more socially interconnected leaderboards that solve problems and disproportionate leaderboard sizes. The question then becomes: what is the “right” size for a leaderboard? And what determines how students are grouped?
The answer depends a lot on the situation. For schools and educational institutions that support thousands of learners, grouping students by course or subject matter is a good segmentation strategy. For large e-learning platforms supporting hundreds of thousands or millions of learners around the world, an effective segmentation strategy can become more complex.
A typical e-learning platform can support tens of thousands of students in just one subject or course. If this is the case, consider grouping your students by grade or proficiency level and creating smaller leaderboards that may be more relevant to each learner.
An important part of segmenting by proficiency level is to give users the opportunity to move up new leaderboards as they progress. Similarly, regularly assessing student progress and moving students down the leaderboard is important to maintaining an effective peer group.
natural reset period
Resetting leaderboard rankings according to a natural schedule is also important to maintain engagement. The choice of daily, weekly, or monthly schedules should be based on the level of activity the educator expects.
If students can participate multiple times a day and improve quickly, daily leaderboards may be justified. However, most platforms allow enough time on a weekly or monthly basis for all students to make meaningful progress and see it reflected in their rankings. The key is to reset the leaderboard according to a defined schedule to prevent gaps in rankings and dropouts over time.
balance test
Before releasing leaderboard functionality, it’s important to test the interaction weights you decide to make up your leaderboard’s ranking logic. Be aware of your students’ learning patterns and ensure that in any scenario you do not allow some students to unfairly outperform others in a way that could significantly impact the participation of other students.
One-time use of leaderboards
In addition to regular leaderboards, try one-off leaderboards for a limited time to coincide with special events like Halloween, Christmas, or important calendar days in your student’s learning journey. This not only increases engagement during this period, but also prevents regular leaderboards from becoming obsolete.
conclusion
We hope this discussion will help educators and eLearning providers reconsider their leaderboard implementation approaches and move toward creating new mental models for a more engaging student experience.
