What 100,000 quiz attempt data of Indian students show: inability to apply concepts on real-world problems

Chaiitanyaa Naik
Nov 4 · 5 min read

A case study based on the performance of CBSE and ICSE students in basic math quizzes

Indian students do well in academics but don’t fare well when it comes to taking math beyond classrooms and applying concepts on real-world problems.

Students in the country managed to perform ‘Simple additions’ involving three and four digits with 95% accuracy, however, scored only 68% while using the same addition skills while solving problems of ‘Calculating total bills’, as per a report by QuizNext, an ed-tech startup from Bengaluru which is maker of QuizNext, a quiz based gamified practice app for CBSE and ICSE students.

QuizNext analyzed student performances in ‘Math Skill Builder’ quizzes which was specially launched during the Indian summer break. The report looked at 120,000 data points ( during April 2019) of over 7,500 students in CBSE and ICSE from 70+ cities.

Struggle with word problems particularly the ones with non- routine wordings

Students in the country solved math problems well and got about 75% of the questions right. However, they seem to struggle with ‘word problems’ without routine keywords, where the accuracy rate on such questions drops down to 63%.

CBSE and ICSE Students performance in math skill builder questions ( Direct vs Indirect)

For example, a problem ( given below) based on multiplication and addition had an accuracy rate of just about 53%, while the students are good in addition and multiplications having accuracy rates of about 95%.

The chart below gives an overview of student performance across different math concepts. These concepts are learnt in the fifth grade and were picked as they have wider real-world applications

Overall Accuracy Rate across different concepts

Good with additions but struggle with decimals

While students seem to do extremely well in ‘Simple Additions’ with the accuracy rate of 95%, they struggle when doing quick additions involving decimal numbers where the accuracy drops down to 75%.

Accuracy rates of students when encountered with problems involving decimals ( Integers vs Decimals)

Problems on decimal addition involved simple questions that required adding three numbers with one or two decimal places as shown below.

Word problems with decimals required students to basic addition, subtraction or multiplications skills questions based on real-world scenarios. A sample question is given below:

Solving ‘Percentages’ is a cake walk, but struggle while applying the same concept in calculating ‘Discounts’

Indian students solved about 90 % of direct problems on percentages, that included problems such as

  1. What is 25% of 2000 is _______ ?
  2. Convert 1/8 into percentages

But the accuracy rates dropped to as low as 62% while applying the same concept while calculating discounts. For instance, only 56% of the times students managed to answer a question like

Diminishing accuracy rates of students while applying percentage concept in calculating discounts

Who is winning ( ICSE vs CBSE)?

ICSE students fare better with ‘word problems’ based on real-world scenarios, however, both CBSE and ICSE students compare with each other in terms of overall accuracy.

Math skill-builder quiz performance comparison: CBSE vs ICSE
Accuracy rates of CBSE and ICSE students across different concepts

The state of real-world mathematics

The best-performing state is not the one that grabbed top rank in this year’s CBSE or ICSE Class 10 board exam. CBSE and ICSE students from Punjab fared better compared to students from other states. Maharastra, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand are other states among the top five states.

Why could this be the issue?

  1. A high- level sample analysis of Class 9 and 10 questions suggest that only 36% of the questions have the real-world context or situational relevance, thereby limiting students to apply concepts on problems involving real-world scenarios.
  2. Less than 21% of the problems from Class 9 and 10 had indirect wording or were without keywords that gave hint to the students on what concept has to be applied.
  3. In academics, words problems are considered as Higher Order Thinking Skills, limiting the exposure of such questions to all students.

User Profiles: The students who took math skill- builder quizzes are QuizNext users who students from CBSE and ICSE curriculum studying in Class 6- 10.

Math- skill builder Quiz: Math skill- builder quizzes are math quizzes based on concepts studied in Class 5 CBSE and ICSE curriculum, that have wider applications in real-world scenarios.

About QuizNext: QuizNext is a quiz based, gamified practice app for CBSE and ICSE students. It uses AI-based remembering algorithms to identify practice intervals for students across subjects, chapters & concepts and then leverage game elements to get suggest chapters and concepts that require practice. It is the only app that helps students to practice math problems based on real-world scenarios but is 100% aligned with CBSE and ICSE curriculum.

QuizNext

A gamified revision app for CBSE and ICSE students

Chaiitanyaa Naik

Written by

Product at QuizNext | Previously built- YSpot, Febler |Tea addict| Dhoni fan

QuizNext

QuizNext

A gamified revision app for CBSE and ICSE students

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