Overcoming Isolation: Fostering Community Among Online Students

Academic Work

Aug 2

Our study aimed to come up with implications for designing technology to **help students overcome isolation and build relationships with their peers and faculty**.

**Role:** UX Research Project Lead. I worked in a team of four
**Timeline:** 8 weeks

Problem:

Statistics show that 44.7% of post-secondary students enrolled exclusively in distance education courses in 2020 ( IPEDS, 2020). However, online students have a lower retention rate than those who take traditional classes, with 40-80% of students dropping their online courses (Bawa, 2016).
In student retention efforts, institutions focus mainly on student success factors, such as curriculum development or course design. However, research shows Facilitation of Social Connectedness also correlates with student retention (Shaikh, U. U., & Asif, Z., 2022).

Goal:

Many communication and networking platforms offer ways for online students to connect with classmates and faculty. While students are forced to use the proprietary tools used by their university (e.g., at DePaul, we use Desire to Learn (d2l)), we were interested in exploring tools that will facilitate communication and networking among online students, their in-class peers and instructors using tools outside of a university’s proprietary tools.

Assumptions:

Placement on the introversion/extroversion spectrum would affect students' efforts to make connections.

Research Question:

“What are user needs in a technology-based solution that promote a sense of belonging and community building among online students?”

Methods, Tools + Ownership:

Tasks owned:

User Research - Scenario-based Observation + User Interviews
Project Management, Project Lead
Presenting three rounds of research in front of the class

Research Tools:

Atlas.ti, Figma, Google Docs, Zoom, Miro, Stormboard

Process Highlights

1. Idea Proposal - Secondary Research

This project started with my idea proposal that received enough buy-in from my classmates. Therefore we proceeded with researching this topic throughout the course.

The proposal:

explained why this is a problem,
introduced two existing competitors: Slack and My SSP,
supported the topic with academic research.

2. UX Research

Scenario-based Observation

The observation study helped the team to gain an initial understanding of how students search for opportunities to connect with others.

We conducted the study with eight participants who had taken at least one class as an online student. In the scenario, we asked participants to imagine they were helping friends to find resources that help them overcome isolation and build relationships among their peers and with their instructors.
**Read Observation Protocol**
**Lead role: I helped the team to keep track of our weekly progress. I proposed that we write meeting minutes, document decisions we made, and rotate the various meeting roles throughout the project.**

User Interviews

Interview Data Analysis

The collected data was the foundation for a technology-based solution's subsequent analysis and development.

All team members independently reviewed and applied descriptive codes to each interview transcript using Atlas.ai, a software tool specifically designed for qualitative data analysis. We conducted a group workshop where we shared our individual findings, then collectively reviewed and consolidated the identified themes using Miro, a collaborative online platform. ( See Affinity Diagram of Common Themes below)

This process enabled us to establish final codes for analyzing the interview data ( Interview Codebook).

We re-coded all interviews, ensuring consistency and accuracy in the analysis. Through the re-coding process, we identified the frequency of occurrence for each theme. These themes were the foundation for our findings and guided the development of persona spectrums, personas, user journeys, and the priority matrix.

Lead role: I initiated one-on-one meetings with my teammates to address communication and motivation challenges we experienced. I am proud of our progress as a team because, by the end of the project, team members were more responsive than at the beginning. I take credit for seeing the need for reaching out and making deeper connections with my project partners, which eventually resulted in increased productivity and commitment.

Findings:

Combining results from the observation and user interviews, the team grouped findings into three major categories: Communication Tools, Communication Challenges, and Community Building. At the end of the analysis phase, we focused on coming up with implications for design based on discovered user needs and pain points.