The brief
King’s College London were developing a new master’s course and sought research to test reactions to the proposed new degree, and identify which audiences were most likely to respond to it positively.
Findings will be used to shape the programme’s further development and marketing, to ensure it meets these market needs.
The approach
We took a qualitative approach to understand in depth the proposed degree programme’s appeal – and the factors that influence prospective students’ decision-making. Our method involved speaking with various audiences, and included:
- Stakeholder interviews with academics at King’s who were involved in the course development – this fed into research tool development.
- 20 interviews with early/mid-career professionals working across a range of sectors.
- 4 focus groups with undergraduate students from King’s and other Russell Group universities.
- 3 interviews with international student recruitment agents, to give an indication of programme’s international appeal.
The value
- Our careful recruitment and analysis allowed us to identify core audiences for the new master’s course.
- Our detailed report gave King’s rich data on reactions to the new programme – allowing King’s to tweak it further, to best meet the needs of these core audiences.
- We then delivered a full presentation of the findings to the wider team at King’s – allowing them to discuss our insights, and feed them into internal programme development meetings.
