Personas: What They Are, How to Make Them, and How to Use Them in Higher Education.
Imagine two students, Student A and Student B.
Based on your student analytics, you already know a lot about them:
Students A and B seem pretty similar, don’t they? They’re both males, about the same age bracket and representing their country in prestigious competitions.
The same engagement or communication would probably appeal to both, right?
Maybe not.
Universities and colleges must create a perfect balance for communicating with a variety of their students, all with different challenges, backgrounds, and motivations for pursuing higher education.
How do you make sure your message is being delivered to the right person, at the right time?
A student persona is a “fictional” representation of an actual student and it should be applied in the early stages of student engagement or communication.
However, what does that mean for user engagement? Why not use push notifications for colleges and universities that have thousands of students?
Creating student personas will help you determine your engagement strategy by segmenting students into different ‘personas’ based on demographics, backgrounds, interests, goals, challenges and so on.
Developing a student persona is very important because without knowing who your students are, it’s very difficult to create an effective communication strategy and share information easily with a certain type of student. Without understanding your students inside and out, marketing efforts and student growth can take the risk - you will never be able to offer anything other than a generic message that is designed to ‘catch all’ and hope that it resonates with the majority of your audience.
Creating student personas is the most effective way to segment and communicate with your institution's diverse student audience.
Personas represent the individual characteristics of a larger group's psychographic profile which offers far more insights than the basic demographic information.
Personas for students might include information such as academic interest (say, a math major vs. a business major), intended career, previous sporting experience, and education quotas.
Each persona should consist of a name, a background, and a story.
Who sounds more engaging to think about: “Prospective Undergraduate: Business Major” or “Vishal, a 17-year old student from Chennai, who competed in his high school’s Cricket Team three years in a row and wants to study M.B.A.?”
Sometimes, students will transition from different personas throughout their educational journey. For instance, a traditional student may become a special-needs-student, and then maybe an alumnus.
Every university is different. You might have a couple of different personas to put on this list, or you might have a couple you need to remove.
But most institutions are going to have a list of personas like the following:
This student is typically 18-22 years old and is attending college full-time. They live away from home for the first time and maybe struggle to balance their academic workload with their social life. They are likely to be engaged in extracurricular activities and may also be working a part-time job.
This student is typically older than 22 years old and may be attending college part-time or online. They may be balancing their academic commitments with work and family obligations. They may also have different goals than traditional students, such as changing careers or obtaining specific skills for their current job.
This student is attending college in a country other than their own. They may be attending school on a student visa and may face additional challenges such as language barriers and cultural adjustment. They may also have different goals than domestic students, such as returning to their home country after graduation.
This student is the first in their family to attend college. They may have financial or logistical challenges that other students do not face. They may also feel pressure to succeed to set an example for their family.
This student has a physical, mental, or emotional disability that affects their learning ability in a traditional classroom setting. They may require special accommodations or support services to succeed in college.
Personas are an essential tool for understanding the needs and wants of different types of users in higher education. By creating personas, universities can design programs and services that better meet the needs of their students.
Personas can also help universities to identify potential problems and areas for improvement. Ultimately, personas can help universities create a more positive and effective learning environment for all students.
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