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Role
User Researcher
Context
CareerVillage's new AI-powered career coaching tool was designed to provide hands-on guidance for diverse learners. To ensure its effectiveness within community college and job training environments, we needed to deeply understand these institutional contexts and their unique student and educator needs.
- What unique career development challenges do learners in community colleges (CCs) and job training programs (JCTs) face?
- What are the current gaps in providing career coaching support?
- What factors influence how partners integrate new career development resources?
Methodology
To gain comprehensive insights, I conducted 19 semi-structured interviews across three key stakeholder groups. I recruited participants through targeted LinkedIn outreach and existing institutional partnerships.
Data Synthesis
I conducted a rigorous analysis of the rich qualitative data from our interviews through a structured synthesis process. The journey from raw transcripts to actionable insights involved multiple stages of analysis and meaning-making.
Key Findings
The synthesis of the interview data revealed clear patterns and insights across user groups. Here, I've organized our key findings to demonstrate how they answer our core research questions about serving learners in community college and job training contexts. Each finding is supported by rich participant perspectives and institutional context.
Impact & Outcomes
Based on our insights, I generated recommendations that shaped core product decisions. Here's how these research findings translated into action:
Reflections
Looking back, the research journey wasn't linear but rather an iterative cycle of discovery. Our team moved between three interconnected phases, which flowed (and often cycled back) to one another:This generative research initiative revealed critical insights by triangulating perspectives across learners, educators, and workforce partners. The comprehensive scope, while challenging to manage, was essential to understand the complex interplay between institutions’ and learners’ needs.
The research findings not only shaped CareerVillage's approach to supporting diverse educational communities but also established a framework for conducting multi-stakeholder research moving forward.