21 Voices Longitudinal Research Study, Cengage Learning
“A student is not just a student; a student is an individual where part of who they are is a student, where part of them is a mom, a friend, a full-time worker.”
Background
Cengage Learning (Cengage) is the third largest educational publisher worldwide, providing content, technology, and services for the K-12, higher education, and professional markets to 19.2 million customers in more than 20 countries.
In 2014, the UX research team was tasked to explore the end-to-end lives of college students. The goal was to understand what potential products and services we could offer in order for these students to succeed in their academic career.
A UX Research Associate position was created for me after my Cengage internship had concluded. This was the first project I was assigned to and it allowed me to explore my leadership and research capabilities.
Overview
A 3-year longitudinal project, 21 Voices, was launched to better understand who today’s college student is, what their needs are, and how Cengage could support their needs.
The 21 Voices Summit (2015) brought together our students and Cengage researchers for a weekend to meet one another in person and engage in workshop activities at our San Francisco location.
Data Collection
Analyzing and synthesizing data was an iterative process.
The first 2 years of the 21 Voices program were exploratory and in turn, involved a high volume of data collection. However the UX research team did not have enough bandwidth to analyze and synthesize data.
For the third program year (2016-2017), I narrowed down data collection methods for faster and more efficient data processing. Data collection was optimized to: monthly Skype calls, mobile diary studies, periodic surveys, and quarterly visits.
Consequently, the research became more tactical in exploring students’ digital learning ecosystem, i.e., understanding students’ relationship with technology in a larger context.
21 Voices data collection process (2014-2016), December 2015.
Monthly Themes
I worked with another UX Researcher, my counterpart, to explore the students’ digital learning ecosystem.
We developed monthly themes to organize our research and created monthly themes that focused on:
How students use their learning management system (LMS) and use course resources and activities to support their learning
How students used their smartphone for school-related activities, i.e., reading an e-book, responding to a study group task on iMessage or Facebook, using their smartphone to take photos of assignments and uploading it to Google Drive, etc.
How students register a digital product, i.e., input an access code and successfully log into their digital product
Indeemo diary study submission, Nov. 2016. Students shared how they used their smartphone for school-related activities.
Social network maps, Oct. 2016. Students created visual maps to illustrate their most meaningful relationships on social media and other communication platforms.
Journey Map Skeleton
Journey Map (Pain Points), Oct 2017. A synthesized representation of our Post-It synthesis of student pain points.
With my counterpart, we reviewed our notes and went through a multi-week process of mapping students’ actions, emotions, pain points, and touch points. We recognized that a substantial amount of students ran into particular challenges when it came to preparing for graded assessments.
Based on the analysis of 23 students, we noted the following:
Students were particularly stressed and overwhelmed when they could not get timely help in preparation for graded assessments, e.g., exams, quizzes
Student sought timely help primarily through online resources, e.g., Khan Academy, FB Messenger, YouTube
Deliverables
Personas
Before fleshing out the journey maps, my counterpart and I developed 2 student personas based on varying levels of needs and goals and observed behavior patterns seen in the journey map skeleton. Initially, the data analysis and synthesis processes were overwhelming because students had a variety of strategies and workarounds when it came to preparing for quizzes and exams.
We took a JTBD approach to bring together personas and journey maps in a unified framework. The learning goals of students inform how they react to a specific situation and decide which product or service they will use to achieve that goal. For example, students would find the correct solution for a practice problem through a YouTube video.
While “striver” students were very methodical and resourceful about the way they approached their learning, “wayfarer” students needed a bit of handholding when it came to identifying resources that provide timely feedback.
21 Voices JTBD personas, Oct. 2017. The JTBD approach helped clearly identify the why and how students choose or “hire” particular products or services to achieve their goal of getting the feedback they need.
JTBD Journey Maps
With the help of my counterpart and an intern, we created contextual scenarios that illustrated how and why students “hired” a product or service, e.g., YouTube, Khan Academy, when student needed feedback for assessments.
We created 4 journey maps for both student personas:
The Striver - STEM student
The Striver – non-STEM student
The Wayfarer – STEM student
The Wayfarer – non-STEM student
The Striver - STEM student
The Wayfarer - STEM student
The Striver - non-STEM student
The Wayfarer - non-STEM student
Outcome
I received positive feedback after presenting the final report to UX researchers, product managers, and senior stakeholders. My research sparked conversation, primarily within product teams, as most of them had never seen a journey map before, let alone saw a visualization of the student experience. Discipline-specific questions arose regarding when students self-assess their knowledge throughout an academic semester.
The research was well-received by the Director of Product Research and became the foundation for new quizzing features for future digital products.