DEI On Campus
An award winning research project my group-mates and I were assigned. Our goal was to research areas where WLU Brantford could improve DEI, to bolster student morale and learning success during the Covid pandemic. After gathering our research, we presented the ways in which the school could improve to a panel of judges who gave us first place.
The Brief
My group-mates and I were assigned to research areas where Wilfrid Laurier could improve EDI to bolster student morale, and learning success. After researching, we were expected to present ways the school could improve without going too in depth.
The Direction
After brainstorming in Mural we decided to focus on international students. Specifically, their experience at Laurier right now. We wanted to find out how current EDI initiatives affect student learning, and if an impact on student social life even matters. And lastly, we wanted to know what initiatives students’ believed were necessary, to create a positive impact on their time here.
Role: UX Researcher, Deck Creator
Tools: Google Forms
Timeline: 3 Weeks
The Research
Research Goal: My team and I started with reading through a multitude of articles, finding keywords and phrases that showed up often, or that we felt held a lot of importance. With this, we had information we could use to help us fill out our survey and interview questions.
We sent out dozens of surveys to international and domestic students alike, we did this to see if there was a difference in experience.
Research Methods
Primary Research
Surveys
Interviews
Secondary Research
Literature Review
What Does Our Data Say?
From our surveys we found that the majority of students had positive experiences in most of the presented topics. The most conflicted area however, was the social experience. The application process, and clubs/work were among the least liked as well. We also found that most students felt that online classes create a barrier that makes it hard to make new friends, and even makes some feel excluded.
From our secondary research, multiple studies suggest a lack of real social interaction makes a direct translation to grades. Implying the need for more initiatives at school that foster a healthy social life for students. We also found that these students were up for new social initiatives. Especially for new students, and international students who have never been on campus, or had the opportunity to make friends at Laurier before.
Persona
After synthesizing our collected research, we came up with a persona that aligned with the most popular pain points and needs.
Possible Opportunities
By introducing things like new committees focused specifically on student wellness, clubs, and/or revised newsletters, we could help mitigate the feeling of distance between our students. These strategies could also address other common problems international student face, such as: slow responses from the University, and finding resources to help transition to living in Canada. We believe that these suggestions could lead to a more socially connected student body.
The Message
Why Does it Matter?
We made sure to utilize our secondary research effectively here, by highlighting financial positives. By focusing on the needs of the international student community, the school could avoid losing out on more international tuition profits, as covid has dropped the rate of international enrolment significantly.
A large portion of Canadian University’s revenue comes from international student enrolment, with British Columbia being the most exposed province, sitting at 50% of total revenue coming from international student tuition.
Presentation
When it came time to present our findings to the judges, I volunteered to take the lead and present our findings. I felt this was necessary as we had a five minute time limit, and since the script was written by me I felt the most comfortable going through it in front of our class and the judges. After all the groups had presented, ours was chosen as the winner of the grand prize and highest marks!
The Retrospective
Thank you for reading my first case study, if you have any feedback or would like to get in touch, please feel free to contact me.
Should Have Dones
I'm extremely proud of the work my team members and I collaborated on here. Though, in retrospect I would have liked more time to do a more thorough job in our research. For example, interviewing professors to see if they noticed a difference in social engagement between international and domestic students, and trying to see if that made a difference in their overall GPAs.
Want to chat about this project?
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