In the past year, students of all ages have faced unprecedented times that have created uncertain and flexible learning situations. Many had to deal with difficult transitions to remote learning, and I noticed a severed decline in motivation and productivity. As this is such a complex issue affecting such a broad spectrum of people, I decided to conduct further research to find the root cause of this problem and solve it.
People across the world are facing unprecedented times in the global pandemic and are being affected in various ways, including their mental health, education, career development, and financial security.
I spent six weeks researching, interviewing, analyzing, and conceptualizing multiple solutions that address the motivation changes college students are facing due to online learning and how to resolve them.
In the beginning, I noticed motivation lapses for people of all ages and stages of life. It made sense that such a large group of people facing collective turbulence and a significant lack of socialization would have difficulty feeling joyful and productive.
However, I noticed that adults with larger responsibilities such as jobs and families, which consumed most of their days, were being held accountable by their peers and following their regular schedules as best as possible.
College students, on the other hand, were in a tough spot considering that they had matured enough to know which techniques worked best for their personal growth, but recognized that their intrinsic motivation was failing and external accountability did not exist. With complete discontinuation of all in-person extra-curricular activities and changes to their learning environments, students at this level were rapidly losing steam and needed a solution.
As motivation is such a variable and extensive concept, I decided to narrow down my problem statement to focus only on college students.
I conducted three user interviews broken down into five segments including general background information, school information, home life, motivation, and digital activity. These interviews proved to be greatly insightful for my selected problem statement.
I interviewed students from different majors of study and different schools to include both quarter and semester systems. All of my interviewees spent a significant portion of time on schoolwork and considered it the most important priority besides career development. There were significant changes to their lifestyles from before and after quarantine and online school began.
"I tried to follow a similar routine from before COVID-19, but found myself not engaged in my classes. I didn't skip classes often, but fell behind very easily due to the flexible schedule."
Users had similar concerns about their new systems. Most were unsure about how professors would handle the transition to online or hybrid status, especially since increased possibility of cheating may result in more difficult classes during an already challenging time. They were also concerned about feeling motivated enough to stay on top of their workload.
"The last few months of last semester were really difficult for me because I always wanted to stay in bed for my classes and ended up falling asleep often. I was missing the learning atmosphere and procrastinated often. I'm worried about passing classes and harder tests as a result of online classes. Hopefully, my professors will be lenient due to the pandemic."
Users were not feeling engaged or comfortable with learning in their environments. Why?
Users mentioned that their work-life balance had been disrupted since their living space had also become their learning space and lack of physical activity outdoors was leading to a sedentary lifestyle. Some users even mentioned increased anxiety of getting COVID-19 or passing it onto their families, which weighed heavily on their minds as they were essential workers.
"I've found that my balance between routine and monotony is missing. I'm stuck at the same desk all day long and then sleeping in that same room. I've lost all social contact and I'm constantly worrying about my family falling ill."
Since most of our users get their information online, we tried to asses which method would benefit our users the most. While many were familiar with Chrome Extensions through word of mouth or advertisements, they did not actively search or use the Chrome Web Store. Additionally, most of our users did not associate Chrome Extensions with progress or knowledge. Due to social media and news outlet contributions, our users expected knowledge to come from mobile or desktop applications. Twitter, Reddit, Google News, and Instagram were some of the top choices for activism information.
Users had a positive impression of the concept of motivation and had developed personal skills to boost their drive when necessary. Users stated that feelings of overwhelming stress or isolation, unsupportive friends, family, or educators, and lack of visible progress all disturbed their internal motivation.
Users experienced cycles of motivation based on new beginnings. Whether it be a new course, year, or work position, users peaked during the beginning as they felt well-rested and ready to tackle challenges head on. As time went on and stress built up, users' motivation dipped, especially during finals or holiday season.
Users had many different techniques to regulate these fluctuations in motivation such as affirmations, positive thinking, regular self-checks, self care breaks, and external resources. Some used apps like Todoist or Flora for sustainable workdays or hobbies like journaling to de-stress.
Since there are various different ways that users can feel consistently motivated, I conducted a comparative analysis of three different applications to find the best features that address users' needs. I researched three applications: Flora, Todoist, and Fabulous. Flora is focused on allowing users to track their time to ensure they are free of distractions to maximize productivity. Fabulous attempts to take users on various self-betterment journeys based on behavioral science. Todoist, a list making and tracking app, was mentioned multiple times by users during interviews regarding motivation and productivity levels.
Flora is a productivity app that includes features to complete tasks, track habits, and build to-do lists. To track progress towards a goal, users can plant a seed that will grow as they stay on task. If users leave the app to use their phones, the tree will be killed. Through this gamification and reward system, users feel more motivated throughout the day and can connect with friends for mutual support.
Fabulous is a goal planner and tracker app that utilizes behavioral science to help users increase motivation and develop healthier and happier lifestyles. It includes features like integrated coaching, Make Me Fabulous sessions with scientific backing, Do Anywhere Exercise for short and intense workouts, The Mind Bus sessions to eliminate stressful thoughts, 4 Hours Deep Work sessions, and Uplifting Fabulous sessions to work through grief. The app is based on the concept of journeys that changes the user's daily routine by adding steps one by one.
Todoist is a cross-platform application for creating to-do lists and tracking projects to help users feel more organized and focused in their daily lives without the stress of multi-tasking or trying to remember everything. It has a very interesting hierarchal system for tasks with sections, subtasks, and prioritizing capability, and includes features like collaborative projects for task telegain and easy communication through in-app commenting, visual analytics of user trends, kanban style boards, and integration of tools like Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack, and Amazon Alexa.
Based on the user research and comparative analysis, I chose a persona of a male college student between the ages of 18 and 25 who is lacking motivation due to the online nature of school and lack of interaction. He follows online resources specific to his major as well as social media and news outlets to stay updated. He is an ambitious student who participates in many organizations on campus and goes above and beyond to pursue his dreams. As a result, he is searching for ways to improve his productivity despite a more sedentary lifestyle filled with distractions.
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Using the insights from user research and comparative analysis, I condensed specific pain points to refer back to while designing potential solutions to the problem statement.
As can be seen from user research, college students have faced many global events that have impacted them in various ways and to different degrees. Due to this, many users have lost their educational environments with high accountability, study groups, and interactions that would normally drive them to succeed and help them engage with the material as they were learning it. While this environment cannot physically be recreated, it is possible to decrease the results of this issue such as procrastination by providing strong organizational tools and opportunities for collaboration.
With such stressful lives, users mentioned that they were struggling to maintain a healthy cycle of motivation. Due to changing external circumstances, students' intrinsic motivation had taken a direct hit and school feels like less of a priority. It seems that certain tools for self-care, scheduling, or reward systems for focus will benefit our users' by holding them accountable and helping them self-regulate better.
While exploring different perspectives on this project was a challenge, I thoroughly enjoyed the creativity it required. Based on the analyses I conducted on both to see the potential for growth versus failure, I personally would have moved forward with designing and testing for Concept #2. The reason that I believe that Concept #2 is a stronger solution for the initial problem statement is because it directly tackles both pain points, while always keeping the users in mind as the target audience. Concept #1 was purposeful as well, but it seemed too much like another planner or to-do list and lacked all mental and emotional support for users. Since motivation is such a multi-faceted and personal issue, a broader application with easy customization makes more sense.