Frequently asked questions

You may have received an email, letter or telephone call from us inviting you to take part in one of our surveys, one-to-one interviews or focus groups. This page is designed to give you a little bit more detail about who we are, what we do and how/why we may have contacted you.

Who are we? 

We are an independent educational consultancy that specialises in market research for those offering products and services to the education sector. Our clients come from the world of publishers, institutions, exam boards and professional bodies and contain some of the biggest names in education. 

How did we get your number?

We work on a project by project basis so this answer will change depending on the project. In some cases our clients give us selected access to relevant customer lists (where the Data Protection Act allows) in others we may purchase lists or data mine from publically available sources. Please feel free to ask your interviewer or the person contacting you for the exact details of how we got your data. 

What do you do with my data? 

We take the protection of your personal information very seriously at Shift Learning. All research is carried out under the MRS code of conduct and all responses are anonymised before being presented to our clients. Once a project is complete and signed off (no more than 2 months after final report delivery) all personal data and files associated with the project are destroyed. 

I've had a call inviting me to a focus group, what is that?

We often invite teachers to take part in focus groups. Focus groups are events where a group of people (often teachers from a particularly subject area or with a similar job titles) are asked about their attitudes towards products, services, concepts, new initiatives or ideas.  It is usually a conversation guided by a moderator who will pose specific questions to the group.