Top UK university learns how open days affect student choice

The Challenge

Liveminds recently worked with a top UK university to help them understand the role open days play when students are deciding on where to study. The challenge was to gain feedback from potential students before, during and after attending an open day.

The Solution

The Liveminds platform was used for an online discussion group with 34 UK-based participants over one week. People were grouped based on university department which allowed the performance of each to be assessed.

Research Activities

Private questions, where people only saw their responses and the researchers replies, were used, which led to longer more honest responses. 

A mixture of web and mobile app questions were used so that the benefits of each could be gained. People tend to use larger devices to view web only questions so they often elicit longer written responses. For example, ‘What do you think of the University?’ was web only as there were a number of sub questions which required people to spend time reflecting before responding.

Mobile app questions enabled participants to provide more colourful insight through immediate responses at the open day rather than recalling how they felt after the event. The Liveminds mobile app allowed people to take the researchers with them - sharing their journeys and experiences. For example, participants were asked to upload photos with descriptions from the open day. To counter any issues with unreliable or slow internet connection the app allows participants to capture photos and videos offline and sync them to the platform at a later time. 

Blocker questions were used to stop people from progressing to the next question without responding. In this project blocker questions were used between stages to find out how people's opinions changed before, during and after an open day.

The Results

The insight gained from using the Liveminds platform helped the University gain a much better understanding of the impact its open days had on the decisions made by students. The mix of web and mobile app questions encouraged people to give longer, insightful responses while at the same time providing compelling visual stimulus. Many of the students were very positive about their involvement in the project and praised a number of the platform features. This included the ease with which the researchers could communicate with participants, how ‘simple and easy’ the platform was to use and how the ability to upload photos helped them provide a more detailed account of their experience.

Methods

Online Qual

Services

Online Qual

Discuss your project

Talk to one of our online qualitative research experts about your project.

Contact us at hello@liveminds.com or call us