Maastricht University

Digitalizing the research of students’ life skills with intuitive app.

Our collaboration with Maastricht University led to the creation of an innovative app addressing the challenges faced by Dutch youth in maintaining good mental health.

This app not only engages students but also enhances their resilience, life skills, and academic success while serving as a valuable research tool in order to improve future generation's onboarding programs.

October 2023

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Optimizing students’ life skills with data

The transition to university life, with its substantial academic demands, new learning approaches, and a vast array of new social connections, can be quite stressful and provide some serious challenges for young adults.

Our collaboration with the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience at Maastricht University embarked on a mission to develop an app that would not only make students enthusiastic but also serve as a valuable research tool. This endeavor was born out of the vision to enhance students' resilience and their ability to foster meaningful connections, addressing the demand for students to manage their academic life succesffully but also deal with today’s complex and fast changing world.

Changing the life of students’ life

The overall objective of the app was to enhance students' life skills, ultimately leading to improved well-being, enhanced social integration, and higher academic achievement.

Through the app, students have the opportunity to engage in fun and easy daily exercises that are based on the principles of improvisational theater, aimed at bolstering their life skills. Additionally, they receive personalized feedback, enabling them to monitor their individual progress and development over time.

We wanted to make it convenient for the young students to interact with the project - and we truely succeed.
- Annika Nübold, Assistant Professor, Maastricht University

From data to action

One thing is the usage and experience for the students. Another thing is the ability to track and organize the data that is provided by the students in a pseudonymized way. The answers from students help to improve the faculty’s work towards better onboarding programs for the students and providesthe necessary scientific evidence to do this in a rigorous way.

Innovating the research process

Conventional academic research methods sometimes feel a little rigid and require meticulous planning to gather precise data.

However, we've introduced a refreshing approach.

Rather than relying on standard tools, our intuitive app encourages users to actively engage with the research while enhancing their life skills, available at any time of the day.

The research became more intuitive for the students by having the opportunity to send out push notification to remind the students of exercises and surveys which simply streamlines the whole research process.
- Annika Nübold, Assistant Professor, Maastricht University

+250 users in 1 week

The app has successfully captivated many students, who now actively participate in the survey and make use of the application.

With the aim of positively impacting the life skills of incoming freshmen of the faculty, our objective was to enroll as many of the initially targeted 400 students as possible at the project's outset.

To achieve this, a reward system was implemented where students earn extra credit points upon completion of all five surveys. Combined with the user-friendly app, we witnessed a significant surge in participation, going from just 100 participants in the previous year to 260 participants within the first week of introducing the app.