01
The question
In spring 2020, COVID moved the whole university online in about two weeks. The Graduate School wanted to know how master's students were coping and how to support them better. There was little to go on: most research on student success and belonging focuses on undergraduates or PhD students, not master's students.
Research questions
- What does academic success mean to master's students?
- How could they be better supported?
- Do they feel they belong in their programs?
- What helps them feel that way?
- How is virtual learning affecting them?
02
Interviews first, so the survey asked the right questions
I ran the study end to end: the IRB proposal, interview guide and survey, every interview, all of the analysis and the final readout.
Step 1
Interviews
11 phone interviews across 6 departments
Step 2
First coding
Themes coded in MAXQDA
Step 3
Survey
Built from interview themes; 120 completed
Step 4
Synthesis
Survey coded, interviews re-coded, both compared
Step 5
Readout
Findings presented to the board
If the survey had come first, I would have missed much of what I found, because I didn't yet know what to ask about.
Phone, not Zoom
Students were burned out on Zoom. Phone calls gave them privacy and let them choose where to talk.
Pivoting recruitment
When the campus-wide survey send fell through, I recruited through department contacts and a Graduate School social media post.
03
What I learned
Time worked like money
Two students who both worked full time had very different outcomes.
Henry · unfunded
"If I was funded, I wouldn't have to work too much. … I don't have a lot of time for school."
Had the money to enroll, but no time to build relationships with faculty or classmates.
Sarah · employer pays
"They're paying me to get my MBA. They also respect when I say I can't do something til my exam is over."
Support from her job and family gave her both money and time.
Participant names are pseudonyms.
36 of 84
Success meant using what they learned, not just grades
Of 84 personal definitions of success, 36 centered on applying knowledge and skills, and 12 tied it to getting a job in their field.
6 of 11
Belonging came from peers, not programs
Six of 11 interviewees didn't know of any support programs for graduate students. Instead, cohorts that had never met in person set up GroupMe chats to check in on each other.
6 in 10
Virtual learning cut both ways
Six in 10 felt disconnected from classmates, professors or their department. But required courses offered online for the first time let some working students finish their degrees.
04
From findings to changes the school could make
I tied every recommendation to a specific finding, so the board could see the evidence behind it.
| Area | Recommendation | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Learning management system | Turn on progress bars, put every deadline in the course calendar, standardize syllabus format | Students couldn't tell if they were on track |
| Remote teaching | Record live lectures instead of pre-recording; shorter sessions with breakout rooms | No chance to ask questions; Zoom fatigue |
| Connection | Build in social time before class; run anonymous check-ins | 6 in 10 felt disconnected |
| Course access | Offer more required courses online | Online options let some students finish |
| Funding | Expand assistantships and other debt-free support | Funding was the strongest driver of success |
05
Outcome
Board readout
Presented findings and recommendations to the Graduate School's Board of Directors.
Reusable deck
Handed over an annotated presentation the school could use in future meetings.
New evidence
Added research on an understudied group, plus the idea of time as a form of capital.
The study wrapped up shortly before I graduated, so I didn't see implementation, but I made the findings easy to reuse so they could keep driving decisions after I left.
Reflection
Think about how you'll analyze the data before you write the questions. Asking for birth year instead of age, and free-text fields inside ranking questions, made analysis harder than it needed to be.
Next time I'd also widen the pool to faculty, staff and students who paused or left, so I'd hear from the people the system had already failed, and add observation once in-person research was possible.