University of Utrecht

To investigate the impact of Civinc, Utrecht University set up a research project where Civinc was used amongst more than 800 students in 7 different courses (such as ‘Cultural Diversity’, ‘Politics & Policy’ and ‘Social Innovation’). In each session, students responded to thematic statements related to their course, and were matched in anonymous one-on-one chats with peers that held different views.

The usecases ranged from plenary lectures to parallel working groups, and from a course with 30 students to a course with 259 students. Research methods included pre- & post-survey around the intervention, qualitative in-depth interviews with students, and an analysis of the chat conversations.

The results were very encouraging:

• The intervention has a positive impact on dialogue & listening skills, willingness to talk, self-confidence and mutual understanding
• Students participated actively, indicated that they felt (very) safe to express authentic views, and did not report a single instance of abuse
• Teachers report that it is easy to use, both in a lecture and in a parallel work group setting

In the words of Dr. Tjitske de Groot, who used Civinc in her course ‘The Voice of Youth’: “Although students were nervous about engaging in conversation with someone with a different opinion, they experienced this as positive through the app and gained insight into the different perspectives of their conversation partner.”

More information on the research outcomes? See here.

Want to try it out? Civinc is free to use for universities!