Research to Drive Decisions

Case Study: Understanding customers’ real priorities to gain share, cut waste and increase profitability

 
Situation

One educational publisher I worked with faced a hyper competitive marketplace: Offerings included many bells and whistles, the cost of business was rising, and margins were shrinking.  A large new sales cycle was about to begin and they had to play, but how? What would set them apart from the rest? How would they win profitably?

 
Research Opportunity

I designed and implemented a conjoint study – a kind of trade-off analysis that lets us see what the consumer really values by having them trade off features and components in a structured survey. Using the leading software, we were also able to model various “packages” to enable the greatest appeal for a given investment. We could also plainly see what additional features did and did not gain in terms of market appeal.

 
Outcome

The research results focused design and development efforts on high impact features and components, leading to a better built, more differentiated product at less cost. Together with a superior sales and marketing team, the organization gained share and profitability in a difficult environment.

 

Case Study: Going deep to understand the underlying purpose to guide design decisions

Situation

Course technology was rapidly changing in response to rising costs and different demands from customers; students, teachers and administrators.  One demand seemed to be growing among all three constituencies: Learning Analytics. But, it seemed they did not all want the same thing, so what to develop and offer?

Research Opportunity

I designed and implemented a series of one-on-one interviews among teachers, students and administrators to explore why they wanted learning analytics, that is, what they were trying to accomplish, what was driving the need?

Outcome

The relatively small number of interviews were analyzed, and the results translated into a series of requirement statements and ultimately a Value Proposition Canvas to guide design and development.

Case Study: Building a research capability for a start up curriculum provider

Situation

A growing and successful organization is going to the next level and recognizes the need to incorporate best practice market research into its decision-making, development, sales and marketing practices.

Research Opportunity

I consulted, listened and learned about the organization and interviewed key stakeholders. I recommended and implemented short and long range plans for addressing the most pressing research needs while building capacity in the organization for research best practices. 

Outcome

Current program development and marketing are incorporating high quality market research into their activities and research best practices are being socialized through the organization and into the DNA of its product management, marketing and delivery teams. 

                                                               

Case Study: Uncovering the common building blocks for 21st Century Exemplar Schools

As a member of the Partnership for 21st Century Learning's Strategic Council, I co-led the foundational work of the 21st Century Exemplar School program. From that work over a year's time, visiting schools across the nation, I wrote a paper that captured my observations of some of the conditions, social processes and mechanisms (including emphasis on the celebrated 4C's) that were present in these initial exemplar schools. The paper can be read here: http://www.p21.org/exemplar-program-case-studies/patterns-of-innovation

Case Study: Using an innovative research design for a quasi-experimental evaluation

Situation

There is strong demand (as there should be) for credible research about the effectiveness of educational technologies, yet schools are not ideal places to do controlled trials. There are many threats to validity including difficulty in random assignment, the lack of high fidelity implementation of programs, and the difficulty of creating adequate control groups ("no treatment" is not always a valid control, while "program in place" adds up to a hodgepodge/difficult to measure control).

Research Opportunity

For several years at the college level, instructors using a particular online teaching and learning system have generally had the option of using an add-on adaptive homework practice module offered from the same organization. In several ways, this provided an innovative opportunity to design more controls into a quasi-experimental study into the effectiveness of both programs.

Instructors who taught two or more sections of the same course were recruited to the study.  At random, one of their sections was assigned use of the adaptive program. The courses were identical in all other respects, and students were not aware of which class used the adaptive program and which did not. Study orientation and training was identical for all instructors (unfortunately not the case in some educational RCTs).

Outcome

The analysis (a careful combination of descriptive data and quantitative tools like regression and ANCOVA as well as the consideration of program theory) demonstrated the contribution that each program made to student performance at varying levels of use. Additionally, the added controls designed into the study enabled the isolation of program effects from possible counterfactuals (such as student effort or teacher effects/tendencies). 

                                                                  Research to Drive Decisions