The method

From a master’s thesis to your study plan

Xamally is built on a 2017 master’s thesis about helping students plan for exams and stay motivated. It did not start from an idea of what students should do. It started by asking students what they actually do, turned the answers into planning rules, and then tested the result with students during their real final exams.

18

Students interviewed before any design

37

Students who used it in real final exams

89%

Called the planning encouraging and successful

1,000+

Automated tests in today’s app

The problem it solves

Most students know they should start early. What goes wrong is the plan: it is made by hand on paper or in a spreadsheet, it is too optimistic, and nothing reminds you of it. After the first missed day it falls apart, and the last exam gets whatever time is left.

The thesis set out to answer two questions: how should study time be shared between courses, and how can a plan keep a student going when things don’t go to plan?

It started with 18 students

Before anything was designed, 18 undergraduates from different departments and universities were interviewed with a 10-question form. The group was chosen for variety: grade averages from under 2.0 to above 3.0, students who always made a study plan and students who never did. The interviews were recorded and analysed for patterns. What they found:

• Students with higher grades usually started studying about two weeks before their exams.
• Most already studied for their last exam first and for their first exam just before exam week.
• They gave some courses more time than others: higher credits, harder material, or less studied during the term.
• Most sometimes had to push a study day back for reasons they couldn’t control.
• They felt more responsible after promising to follow a plan, but only if the plan was realistic.
• They wanted something like a roommate: a reminder that says “you said you’d study this today”, and their own reasons (family, a holiday, a person they love) when motivation drops.

Each of these findings became part of the method below.

Designed with students, step by step

The design went through a storyboard, then a paper prototype, then a working Android app, and each step was shown to students before the next one. The storyboard alone revealed what was missing: how much time a student wants to give each course, and the hours they are never free because of sport, work or other routines. Both became questions the app asks.

1. Share time by priority

Because students clearly gave some courses more weight, you rate each course from 1 to 5. Your total study time is shared in proportion: a course rated 5 gets five times the time of a course rated 1. The model is deliberately simple so you can predict what it will do.

Your daily limit is your session length times the number of sessions you want per day, because the interviews showed students follow a realistic plan and can’t go past their daily limit. Nothing is ever planned on an exam day.

2. Plan backwards from each exam

Students already studied for the last exam first and the first exam last; the thesis turned that habit into three rules:

• Rule 1: every course first takes the free day right before its own exam, starting with the nearest exam. When exams fall on consecutive days, the order mirrors: for exams A, B and C you study C, then B, then A, so each course is fresh on the day that counts.
• Rule 2: a course is only ever studied before its own exam.
• Rule 3: going backwards day by day, each day takes the courses with the most study time still left (up to how many courses you want per day) and splits the day between them.

When two courses want the same slot, the nearer exam wins, then the higher priority. Time that can’t be placed where it was meant to go moves to other free slots; none of your planned time is quietly dropped.

3. Start two weeks early, or be told honestly

The students with the best grades started about two weeks before their exams, so Xamally asks for at least 14 days before your first exam. If you start later, it tells you and suggests a start date instead of squeezing an impossible plan into too few days. If even two weeks aren’t enough, it tries three, four and more; if nothing works it asks you to re-rate your courses or give it more time per day. You can shorten the 14 days yourself.

4. Built for bad days

Most students interviewed said they sometimes had to push a study day back, so postponing is part of the plan, not a failure. Half of a postponed session moves to the course’s next study day and the other half to the one after. A day may grow to at most twice your normal daily time, sessions never move onto an exam day, and your days off and busy hours are respected.

If there is no room left, Xamally tells you and asks whether you want to cancel the session. It never cancels anything on its own.

5. Measuring progress without punishing you

Your success rate is the share of sessions you completed out of those you completed or cancelled. Postponing does not lower it: if you postpone, you still study. Cancelling does. The rate puts you in one of three levels, and the app’s tone follows it:

• Above 75%: going well.
• 60 to 75%: a gentle nudge.
• Below 60%: a clearer warning, with your own promise.

6. Motivation that comes from you

Students said their own reasons kept them going: the money their family spent on them, a holiday plan, the person they love. So Xamally asks for a promise in your own words, photo or video, and shows it to you when your plan starts to slip. When you’re on track, it reminds you of the reward you promised yourself.

Tested in real final exams

The first version of the app, built for the thesis, was used by 37 students from four universities during their actual final exams. They planned four weeks: two weeks of study before the exams and the two-week exam period itself. Every completed, postponed and cancelled session was logged, problems were fixed with updates during the test, and at the end every student answered a 15-question survey.

• 33 of 37 (89%) described the planning as encouraging, helpful or successful. Only 2 were negative.
• 31 of 37 (84%) said students need an app like this during exams.
• 29 of 37 (78%) kept using it until their last exam.
• 28 of 37 (76%) wanted to use it again, and 28 would recommend it to friends.
• 27 of 37 (73%) followed more than 70% of their plan.
• 24 of 37 (65%) said seeing the photo and words of a person they love raised their motivation.

Each result was checked with a chi-square test and was statistically significant (p < .05; most p < .01).

These numbers come from the thesis study of the first version. Xamally is a new app rebuilt from that work, with the same method.

In their words

What students in the field test said, as reported in the thesis:

From the thesis to Xamally

The test also showed what was missing. Students asked to edit the plan the app made and to get reminders without opening the app; both are in Xamally. The planning engine was rewritten as a separate, self-contained piece of code so it can be tested on its own:

• Over 300 automated tests cover the planning engine alone, and more than 1,000 cover the whole app.
• The worked example from the thesis (five courses, 60 hours of study, 4 hours a day) is rebuilt and checked on every change.
• On every change, 100 randomly generated exam periods are planned and checked: no session on an exam day, no day over its limit, no planned time lost.
• Every product decision, and every place where the app deliberately differs from the thesis, is written down in a decision log.

Where Xamally differs from the thesis, it is on purpose. In the thesis, postponing lowered a student’s level; in Xamally it doesn’t, because a postponed session still gets studied. And every session the method suggests can be moved, edited or deleted: it gives you a strong first plan, and you stay in charge.

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