For Imagine Worldwide, one guiding question has shaped years of work in education technology: How can we ensure learning innovations truly serve the children and communities they are meant to support?
That question has driven extensive research on onecourse, a personalized learning software designed to strengthen foundational literacy and numeracy. With a strong record of rigorous evaluation, onecourse now plays a central role in Malawi’s national Building Education Foundations Through Innovation & Technology (BEFIT) program — a government-led initiative supported by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and other partners.
BEFIT is a large-scale tablet-based learning program already reaching hundreds of primary schools and expanding toward thousands more nationwide. As the program grows rapidly, Imagine Worldwide’s research approach has evolved as well — building on strong scientific evidence while incorporating the lived experiences and perspectives of the communities it serves.
From Rigorous Evidence to Real-World Implementation
Personalized education technology has shown significant promise in improving foundational learning, and onecourse is among the most thoroughly studied programs in the field.
Across multiple countries, languages, and learning environments, at least nine randomized controlled trials have demonstrated consistent gains in literacy and numeracy. These studies provide strong scientific evidence of effectiveness.
But scaling a program across an entire education system introduces new realities. Schools differ. Communities differ. Implementation quality varies. Without careful adaptation, these real-world factors can influence long-term impact.
After contributing five randomized controlled trials to the global evidence base, Imagine Worldwide expanded its research focus. Today, the organization complements traditional impact measurement with community-based research — ensuring that program quality, sustainability, and local ownership remain strong as BEFIT continues to expand.
Listening to Communities Through Annual Surveys
One of the main ways program quality is monitored across Malawi is through annual stakeholder surveys. These surveys gather perspectives from teachers, parents, school leaders, and learners themselves, capturing how tablet-based learning is experienced in everyday school life.
Earlier survey tools were shaped largely by research priorities and institutional stakeholders. To strengthen local influence on how program success is defined and measured, Imagine Worldwide conducted a study on community-defined social and emotional learning (CSEL).
This research asked two fundamental questions:
-
What skills do communities believe children need to succeed in the BEFIT program?
-
Is the program helping children develop those skills?
The answers helped reshape how social and emotional learning is assessed in annual surveys, making evaluation more locally grounded.
The results were striking. Among more than 800 respondents, 95% reported that students paid greater attention in regular class after participating in the tablet program.
By integrating community-defined outcomes into evaluation, Imagine now gains a more holistic and culturally relevant understanding of program impact — insights that directly inform implementation improvements year after year.
Understanding Implementation Through Stakeholder Experience
Surveys are only one part of the picture. To understand how BEFIT functions in everyday settings, researchers also conduct in-depth qualitative studies across Malawi’s central, southern, and northern regions.
During site visits, they observe tablet sessions and interview a wide range of stakeholders, including:
-
Government officials
-
School leaders
-
Teachers
-
Parents
-
Community leaders
-
Students
These conversations explore practical realities such as student engagement, time-on-task challenges, gender equity in learning outcomes, inclusion of students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and the effectiveness of community engagement efforts.
Across regions, stakeholders consistently report strong student focus and enthusiasm. One teacher described the experience this way:
“Once a learner is working on the tablet, they focus… Some learners who are often shy to raise a hand in class get quality time to interact freely with the tablet — almost like one-on-one with a teacher.”
Parents observe the impact at home as well:
“When they come home from school, they explain what they learned through the tablets… They even write things for us to see.”
While feedback has been largely positive, stakeholders consistently identify one key operational challenge: tablet functionality. Reliable technology, they emphasize, is essential for maintaining learning momentum.
Importantly, communities report equal expectations for boys and girls and strong inclusion of students with SEND. Engagement with the program is also high — with widespread participation in community sensitization meetings and active involvement from teachers and government officials.
These insights are shared monthly with program teams, helping guide training, monitoring, and planning.
Sharing Research Findings With Communities
For Imagine Worldwide, research does not end with data collection. Returning findings to participating communities is considered an ethical responsibility.
During recent visits, research teams shared results from the CSEL study and related work on early reading skills. One finding — that memory plays a crucial role in children’s success using tablets — sparked meaningful discussion.
Parents and teachers shared practical memory-building strategies they already use, such as:
-
Asking children to recall shopping lists
-
Playing number and letter games
-
Encouraging children to explain what they learned at school
These exchanges demonstrate how knowledge flows both ways — from research to community and from community to research.
Evidence That Grows With Communities
This approach directly supports Malawi’s broader education reform goals under the GPE Partnership Compact, which prioritizes strengthening foundational learning nationwide.
By combining rigorous research, continuous feedback, and community participation within a government-led program, BEFIT represents a shift from small pilot projects toward sustainable, system-wide change.
As the program continues to expand, Imagine Worldwide’s work highlights an important lesson: strong evidence does not come only from controlled trials. It also emerges through listening, adapting, and building trust with the communities where learning happens.
In this model, education technology becomes more than a tool for instruction. It becomes a shared effort — grounded in partnership, shaped by local experience, and driven by a collective commitment to children’s success.
