Drawing on the techniques of the field of user experience design, the Learning Experience Research (LXR) team conducts feedback sessions with students. We use the results to determine best practices for course design and implementation of instructional technology, and we disseminate those best practices within the Center for Teaching and Learning and to faculty. We are available to work with faculty and academic programs directly to ensure their courses and programs are meeting the needs of their students. Our goal is to ensure DePaul students have a seamless and satisfying experience when interacting with course materials and instructional technology.
Working with LXR
If you have a design challenge in your course or program and want student feedback data to help solve it, we want to hear from you! Set up a time to
meet with us so we can learn more and develop a plan of action that may include:
We can review your learning materials and provide recommendations based on our past testing and student feedback. We can provide recommendations on programmatic templates, D2L course sites, and other course materials to help ensure they are clear, usable, and effective
We structure an activity in which we invite student participants to utilize a component of a D2L course site or other instructional materials and observe them, allowing us to learn in real time what might confuse students, cause a roadblock, or elicit other reactions. We may create multiple iterations of a design to test with students, or do multiple rounds of testing as we improve the artifact’s design. Past tests we have done include:
- Evaluating standard “Online Student Resources” pages that are deployed in multiple classes.
- Evaluating D2L course structured with submodules versus without submodules.
- Evaluating an academic program’s D2L hub for user friendliness
In evaluating appropriate projects for user experience testing, we prioritize projects where we hope to determine best practices that can benefit the broader university community.
We can sit in on one or more class sessions to provide objective feedback about how students are experiencing your class and provide recommendations on structuring class sessions, active learning strategies, and student engagement. Our class observations and feedback are entirely confidential to the instructor.
These research methods can help answer broader questions about challenges at the programmatic level. Possible topics might include:
- Student sense of belonging and inclusion
- Attitudes around technology and academic misconduct
- Barriers to student persistence and completion of an academic program
We can assist in planning and designing surveys to be deployed to larger student groups
* LXR can usually handle recruitment of student participants for feedback sessions. We may ask for your help if you need feedback from a specific kind of student–like students who are majoring in your program, or of a specific demographic profile.
Contact Us
Interested in a consultation? Fill out this interest form and we’ll get in touch with you within five working days:
Interest form.
Participant Recruitment
Student participants in our research activities are usually eligible for compensation in the form of Amazon gift cards. If you’re a student interested in being contacted for our feedback opportunities, fill out this form:
Student Participant Signup.
Teaching Experience Research
We occasionally conduct instructor user experience testing, focus groups, and surveys to improve the services of the Center for Teaching and Learning.
If you are interested in participating in being contacted for these research efforts, please fill out this form:
Instructor Participant Signup.