Designing a Diary Study

About the Event

The University of Southampton’s exploration into how prospective students navigate from uncertainty towards decision-making. 

In today’s world, prospective students face a more complex decision than ever about university and what to study. The potential risks of making the wrong decision have never been more intimidating and the stakes have never been higher. These stakes are felt particularly strongly by early-stage prospective university students who are navigating a journey from uncertainty about what to study, towards making a life-changing decision.

In this session, Senior User Researcher Matthew Reeve MSc will share how The University of Southampton is tackling this problem by exploring how early-stage prospective students are running this gauntlet. The focus of this session will be around how diary studies were used to understand users’ behaviours and emotions over time while they navigate this journey, highlighting the lessons learned and the pitfalls to avoid, to ensure you can design effective diary studies and get the most out of this research method. 

Matthew will share lessons learned from his own experience leading diary studies at The University of Southampton, on the importance of good diary study design. Whether you’re interested in learning about how prospective students think and behave towards the decision about university, or you’re looking to learn about the postgraduate student or even the staff experience at your institution, you will gain valuable lessons from a university that has utilised diary studies to understand patterns of behaviour from longitudinal data in this session.