Contextual Inquiry: Student Progress Reports and Parent-Teacher Communication (2.5-min. read)
October 2017 - December 2017 | Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA | Team: Four UX Researchers
Hebrew Day School home page
The Hebrew Day School (HDS), a private religious primary school, faced challenges with their progress report system, leading to complaints from teachers and parents. These complaints mainly revolved around the significant time and effort required by teachers to create a single progress report, without a clear understanding of their purpose or value to the school administration and parents. To address this, our research objective was to identify the primary pain points in the progress report production process and gather feedback from parents and teachers.
Approach
In collaboration with my team, our data collection involved entailed a two-phase study. First, we distributed separate online user surveys to teachers and parents at HDS using Typeform to gather initial insights and refine interview questions. Second, we conducted contextual interviews with participants, including teachers, administrators, and parents (n=8), at the HDS building.
These interviews allowed us to gain in-depth information and observe participants in their respective settings, where progress reports were being created by administrators and teachers, and consumed by parents, which was typically during parent-teacher conferences.
The contextual interviews enabled teachers to demonstrate their physical process for writing the reports, the platform and digital tools they use, their communications with other teachers, and discussion of their pain points and process.
The contextual interviews with parents were held in the same conference rooms where the parent meet with teachers for their conferences. They recounted their past experiences in these conferences, their communications with teacher, and what they’ve found valuable and not valuable about the reports.
Process
As a team, we actively participated in stakeholder meetings, conducted research, and performed analysis for the project. However, I faced a family emergency at the project's outset, which required me to take a short break. Upon my return, I swiftly caught up with all project aspects and promptly resumed research with the team. The process is detailed below.
1) Stakeholder Interviews & Logistics
My team explored problem area with stakeholders, arranged logistics for survey and participant recruitment.
2) Implemented Study
We collected quantitative data through user surveys and qualitative data through contextual interviews. Each researcher conducted two contextual inquiries with teachers and/or parents. Transcribed at least two interviews for exposure to participant feedback.
3) Affinity Mapping
We collaboratively identified common themes and pain points across interviews and notes using virtual collaboration tool Miro (RealTimeBoard at the time).
4) Sharing Findings & Recommendations
We shared research report, presentation, and Google Forms template with stakeholder to facilitate strategic change for the progress reporting system and teacher-parent communication.
🤔 Drawback: Limited access to live or pre-recorded parent-teacher conferences prevented observation of parent-teacher interactions, relying solely on self-reported data instead of behavioral insights.
Results
Insights were derived from surveys (parents n=16, teachers n=10) and analysis of 257 affinity notes on Miro. Findings revealed lack of report standardization, relevant information, and data sharing among teachers. Parents primarily focused on learning challenges and behavioral issues in the reports.
Some of our recommendations include:
Using visuals to reduce report complexity and abundance of text.
Utilizing Google Forms for standardized data input.
Investing in an LMS for auto-generated reports accessible to parents and teachers.
Below are a combination of research artifacts that we collected or developed over the course of the study. This include anonymized sample of progress report (at the time), lifecycle of a progress report, and affinity map .
Diagram of the typical life cycle of a progress report
