From partial to complete
20 December 2018
Hello all, firstly let me introduce myself. I’m Neha Agarwal, Head of Research and Insight at HESA. As you know, we’ve been busy implementing our engagement strategy for Graduate Outcomes and overcoming some issues with the supply of contact details as shared earlier in the week.
Encouraging the graduates who have started the survey is a key target group and we want to prioritise getting them through the core question set required for a valid response.
At week three, with all graduates with a working email address having now received a reminder email, we knew that there would be a large percentage who’d be in this group. Thinking about the user experience helps us to determine how the engagement strategy would address this: they would receive the email, click the link to see what it’s all about, do some fact-finding (e.g. checking the website, social media or referring to their provider) and then make the critical decision on whether they complete it.
We are unable to share the full engagement strategy, but we thought it would be useful to share some key points that will help graduates to make the decision to complete the survey.
This will hopefully also convey the sophistication of the Confirmit system in managing responses across modes and with graduates at different stages of completion.
- Graduates in the ‘started survey’ group will receive regular reminders encouraging them to finish the survey. We have designed separate emails for this group of respondents to acknowledge the fact that they have already started the survey. They will be sent the same unique survey link which opens at exactly the same question where they left off. All responses to questions answered up until that point will be retained in the system
- Respondents who have started the survey but not completed it can go back and finish it at any point during the data collection period, for a given cohort
- Those starting the survey online will be allowed appropriate time to complete it online before they are followed up via telephone
- Those starting the survey on the telephone, but not completing, will also have the opportunity to complete the survey online if we have relevant contact details for them
- The telephone and online versions are synchronised and therefore graduates will be able to pick up the survey where they left off, regardless of the mode (online or phone). This makes the experience is seamless
We’re able to monitor user experience of graduates completing the survey which provides us with useful insight across the cohort. For example, so far nearly 60 per cent of respondents completing the survey online have done so using a smartphone and the rest on a desktop. The time between 1pm and 3pm appears to be most popular for survey participation with almost a third of all completed surveys received during this period.
Empirical evidence such as this is helping us plan and adjust the ongoing engagement strategy. Over the coming months we will continue to utilise the breadth of paradata available to us in order to manage and enhance this survey and the user experience.
I hope you find this useful and the team and I will update you again very soon.