Monitoring Learning Gains

The Tablet-Based Self-Administered EGRMA

How We Started

In 2021, we partnered with RTI International, with support from the Jacobs Foundation, to develop a tablet-based Self-Administered EGRMA (SA-EGRMA) to monitor learning gains for our scaling program.

The SA-EGRMA is a child-directed measure of foundational learning skills that delivers comparable validity and reliability to the traditional EGRA and EGMA, at a fraction of the cost. It is administered offline through the secure Tangerine® platform.

Localized versions are available in five languages: English for Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, Chichewa for Malawi, and Kiswahili for Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar. All versions are free and open for use by any researcher, with options to build a customized assessment for your own context.

Read the assessment’s full pilot reports

The Child-Directed Design

Unlike the traditional EGRA/EGMA, all tasks are untimed and the assessment requires very little adult intervention:

  • Assessors supervise the process, collecting student assent, helping children with any technical issues that may arise with the tablet, and overseeing several students working at once.
  • Students are given a tablet with headphones to hear audio recordings of directions and prompts from the tablet-based narrator.
  • Students tap their responses on the screen and advance through the subtasks at their own pace.
How It Works

  • The Literacy Assessment: subtasks are mostly multiple choice, with a Spelling subtask where students are asked to spell a word using an on-screen letter keypad.

  • The Numeracy Assessment: most subtasks ask students to enter their answer using a number keypad, while the Number Discrimination subtask asks them to select the largest number from a provided list.

We have developed a validated proxy score for Oral Reading Fluency using either the Spelling test or a composite variable, depending on the language, because the tool does not currently have speech recognition capacity.

Using the Digital Assessments for Program Evaluation

We currently use the SA-EGRMA in several languages to conduct annual baseline and endline assessments in literacy and numeracy and to track achievement trends over time in our scale countries. The SA-EGRMA allows us to collect large-scale data at about one-quarter the cost of the traditional paper-based assessment.

In 2025 and 2026, the World Bank is conducting a matched-comparison quasi-experimental study of the BEFIT program in Malawi, using the Chichewa SA-EGRMA to measure learning impacts. Other research organizations have customized the tool for use in additional countries and contexts.

Explore the User Guide to determine whether the SA-EGRMA is right for your program

Executive Function Assessments

Alongside the SA-EGRMA, we have developed a battery of digitized assessments to measure executive function (EF) skills among school-aged children in Malawi.

Executive function refers to the cognitive skills that help individuals manage attention, memory, and behavior to reach goals. Between 2023 and 2024, our research team ran iterative small-scale pilots to build an EF assessment battery, both to extend prior research on EFs in tablet-based learning (Bardack et al., 2023), and to collect EF data at scale during the nationwide rollout of the BEFIT program.

Read the Executive Function Assessment Overview

For more information about SA-EGRMA, please contact us at info@imagineworldwide.org