[sramam]

I watched the video on the site - a first grader winning a top prize and $1000?

Speaking as a parent, money seems like a wrong metric for gamification of reading - especially at that age and those amounts.

Perhaps you have insights to justify?

[Anisa_Mirza]

We do! Have you seen some of the interviews with past winners? Our kids range from parents who have a second home in the Hamptons, NY (high networth) all the way to parents from mid to mid-low income bracket. Using usd cash prize is a HUGE incentive to get kids excited. I have observed no difference based on parents income bracket oddly. Lesson: kids don’t care to virtue signal :) Even our school launches go better when there is a usd cash prize for top school.

Having said that, we reward users with our own in app currency, Litcoin, after the first promotional usd prize. The reason it works is that after a month with us, kids value Litcoin and care for it more than the usd reward.

Past winners videos: https://www.litnerd.com/post/a-new-litnerd-reading-club-tour...

https://www.litnerd.com/post/litnerd-reading-club-tournament...

[sramam]

Interesting. I wonder what the long term effects of this are.

Won't the results of classic intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation studies apply?

I'd imagine if reading (and learning in general) is extrinsically driven, one might move the needle say from 0->5. Once the driver is removed, I'm having a hard time seeing it succeed.

I do not have studies or large scale data to back it, but my boys (12, 17) have exhibited the drop-off in interest once the extrinsic motivation and/or peer group vanishes.

Perhaps it's not in your business interest to do so, but it'd be very useful to understand the longer term implications of a program like this.

I do not mean to discourage you - just curious - and wishing I could take back my tiger parenting altogether.

[Anisa_Mirza]

first off, thank you for diving into this. As someone who studied neuroscience at college, we’re getting into some of my favourite topics :)

So, to answer your question there is actually a ton of research on the influence of gamification, reward mechanism and positive conditioning and their effects on learning outcomes. If podcasts are your thing, there is a wonderful Huberman Lab series on this too. I will link towards the end here.

Dopamine, the chemical which controls pleasure, learning and memory in the brain, can be used to hijack motivation and increase attention spans among learners – and when used correctly, it can even make your learning program/app addicting. Basically, what Litnerd does is leverage dopamine release (a big cash prize in this case creates shock and huge anticipation which acts as the initial hook/motivator) to get kids to want to signup and go through the monthly habit of our app and the reading activities.

After the first month, we do not see reading levels or activities in app go down. Even thought the cash reward incentive is gone. Students are still competing monthly and the chance to win more Litcoin (our points system in app) is what keeps them motivated afterwards. We hold competitions monthly and the reward is more Litcoin. For kids, however, an added motivator of our app is the weekly meetup. Kids want to be in the know with their peers each week at the meetup and this helps keep motivation for staying up to date with the daily reading and reading courseware.

Growing up in Karachi, my motivator to get good grades was to avoid getting beaten with a metal ruler. This was normal in my all girls school. Another motivator was that in highschool, our grades were posted in the local newspaper and it was considered dishonor to the family to not have A’s at least. This mechanism of negative reward system definitely plays into dopamine as well but research shows that positive conditioning leads to better long term learning outcomes than negative conditioning.

We have real data to show that in just 4 months, students improved comprehension scores by upwards of 70% and phonics by upwards of 40%. You can bet that i am eager to report back in a full year on how we compounded learning outcomes across Vocabulary, Phonics, Phonemic Awareness, Comprehension and Fluency.

All that to say, I feel you on tiger parenting. And that is why I am so bullish on what we are building and our positive dopamine connection by making learning fun and exciting via monthly tournaments (again, you only have a cash prize reward once. Every month thereafter, it is pure gamification without cash prizes).

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. Would love to hear what you think?

[Anisa_Mirza]

Forgot to link the Huberman Lab podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/1olAVb6VJe5us6yZvgy3FG?si=O...

Curious to hear your thoughts!

[sidcool]

I think the target for those monetary prizes are the parents and not the kids

[Anisa_Mirza]

Correct, in part. It is our promotion to motivate someone to signup but many times it is the child pushing the parent by bringing up the cash reward. It is just our first introductory promotion. Every subsequent month challenge is rewarded in Litcoin and kids can use their bitcoin at the Litnerd Store to buy items they want like iPads, Roux, Game stations, collector cards to play the Litnerd game and more. Much better than trying to acquire customers via high CAC ad spend.