Feasibility and utility of an executive function
Researchers piloted Tangerine’s tablet-based executive function (EF) assessments with 197 students in rural Malawi, replacing older laptop-based methods with a more accessible, tablet format. Nearly all children completed the tasks in under an hour, demonstrating that tablets can deliver reliable cognitive measures even in low-resource schools. This innovation opens the door for large-scale studies on how malaria affects learning and supports evidence-driven strategies to improve education in high-burden regions. By making advanced cognitive assessments portable and practical, Tangerine is helping bridge health and education for lasting impact.
Data collection and visualisation
In this report, we aim to explore digital tools that allow for cost-effective, adaptable, usable, timely, and reliable data collection and visualisation to inform decision-making. Digital data collection and visualisation tools have proven to yield reliable results, facilitate inclusion of ethnic and language minority groups as well as students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Such tools can save organisations time and resources during the data collection and visualisation process, minimise errors during data collection, and help to easily share results and collaborate, often without the need for advanced technical expertise. To develop this resource, a market landscape analysis was developed to identify potential tools. From over 50 tools, four were explored in depth to understand how they were used and adapted to different contexts in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. These case studies allow us to evidence the adaptability of the tools to different research needs and highlight the challenges in those implementations.
Results of Pilot SA EGRA and EGMA
RTI International piloted tablet-based, self-administered Early Grade Reading (SA-EGRA) and Mathematics (SA-EGMA) assessments in Ghana to measure foundational literacy and numeracy. Over 800 students in grades 1 and 3 completed the tools, which showed strong reliability and promising validity compared to traditional EGRA/EGMA. Spelling tasks in SA-EGRA correlated highly (r = 0.828) with oral reading fluency, and math tasks demonstrated acceptable consistency. These innovations reduce assessor burden and enable scalable, child-driven assessments in low-resource contexts. Findings confirm that digital self-assessments can provide accurate, efficient measures of learning outcomes, paving the way for broader deployment.
Additional Analyses for SA EGRA and EGMA
RTI International conducted additional analyses of Ghana’s pilot of tablet-based, self-administered Early Grade Reading (SA-EGRA) and Mathematics (SA-EGMA) assessments. Findings confirm strong reliability for most tasks and highlight the Spelling subtask as a robust proxy for oral reading fluency, even when compared to a composite literacy score built using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Syntax redesign successfully eliminated “yes bias,” while some numeracy tasks, like Number Identification, performed less effectively with higher-proficiency students, suggesting item adjustments for advanced learners. These insights strengthen the case for scalable, child-driven assessments using Tangerine, enabling accurate, efficient measurement of foundational skills in low-resource contexts.