Understanding Inspiration and Motivation at the Top of the Funnel

In order to transform lives through international education and deliver exceptional outcomes for students and partners, we need to identify the motivations, perceptions, fears and anxieties students have about studying abroad. Once we understand this, we can provide solutions and touchpoints to help students thrive.

As part of our large-scale, quantitative Emerging Futures research, we ask All students (Prospective, Applied and Current) why they have chosen a certain country as their first-choice destination. We provide a long list of options including ‘high quality of education’, ‘good employment opportunities after graduation’, ‘safe country for international students’ and lots more. (Spoiler – these three are the top factors chosen as the primary factors in first-choice destination in our most recent study.)

Dashboard filters allow us to look at specific groups of respondents. We know that prospective students, those at the top of the funnel who have not yet applied, also feel ‘high quality of education' is the number one factor, followed by ‘good employment opportunities’; however, the third most important factor for this cohort is ‘availability of scholarships’.

This type of research is vital for knowing how students make decisions and what drives their choices. The factors are pragmatic and can help institutions understand what is important to students as they begin their study abroad journey.

Our UX (user experience) teams also conduct qualitative research to help IDP develop and provide student-facing services that resonate with students at the beginning of their international education search.

As part of IDP’s UX research for our Hotcourses sites, we wanted to find out what excites students about studying abroad. This article shares the results and, through in-depth user interviews, shows what triggers and inspires students to study abroad.

Methodology

We wanted to understand how to elicit excitement from students visiting our websites and wanted to know:

• What triggers and inspires students to study abroad?

• What excites them about studying abroad?

• What do they want to achieve?

• What is most pressing to know about when researching study abroad options?

• What is most difficult to understand?

To answer these questions, we conducted six semi-structured one-to-one interviews with undergraduates who were researching their study abroad options.

Three of the cohort were students with little or no knowledge of international education and needed a full-service experience with ongoing support, while three had slightly more experience/knowledge and were seeking some advice and support. Importantly, the students had no previous interaction with IDP and had not visited Hotcourses websites. They were from India and Nigeria.

We asked the interviewees what made them first consider studying abroad. The main inspiration for those who were already certain they would be studying abroad was the real experiences of friends and family. It was interesting that none of the interviewees felt pushed or pressured by their family to study abroad, instead, they said it was the real-life experiences of relatives and friends who were already living or studying abroad who had the greatest influence.

In our Emerging Futures 5 research, we asked the All student cohort who had the greatest influence on their decision where to study. 42% told us it was their parents, 30% said it was their friends studying or living in another country, and 25% said it was family members who were studying or living in another country.

Interestingly, parents are considered more influential than the global average in India, China, Bangladesh, Nepal and Nigeria.

In our UX research, the interviewees told us:

“Some of my relatives are in the UK and they’ve often mentioned the possibility of joining them to study abroad.”

“I came up with the idea when I met exchange students studying in my hometown – it looked like a great opportunity!”

“My brother is doing a postgraduate course here in India… it doesn’t feel like he’s having a great learning experience honestly”

The second trigger for thinking about studying abroad was competition in their home country. For example, high competition in India often means that to study in a reputable/high-ranking institution, the only option for students is to study abroad – therefore, international education is a necessity rather than a desire.

“In India the population is huge. Only 2% gets into IAM or IIT. I have better chances with a good college abroad as it’s less competitive than here.”

From our Emerging Futures research, we know several rational factors are important when prospective students choose to study abroad, especially when deciding which country to study in – for example, receiving a good education and going where graduate outcomes are promising.

In our UX research, when we asked the students, “Why do you want to study abroad?’ at first they also gave us rational answers, such as to broaden their career options, to boost their employability profile, access to better work opportunities, and to improve their prospects/quality of life.

“[Once I’m back home] I’ll have something more to offer than others, especially if I’ll be working with foreign companies.”

However, in our UX interviews we wanted to dig further, so we asked the students to elaborate on why they wanted to study abroad rather than at home. It was the new experiences associated with traveling to a different country that came to the forefront i.e. international education providing experiential goals.

These experiential goals broadly fell into three categories:

• Independence – Four of the six interviewees repeatedly talked about seeking independence from their family at home as a main reason to study abroad.

• Broadening cultural horizons – Three out of six interviewees talked about seeking ‘new life experiences’ different to those in their home country. They revealed the desire to connect with new people and cultures, often mentioning new food and city architecture.

• A sense of belonging – three out of six interviewees said that studying abroad would fulfil a need to belong – to ‘find their tribe’. International education was perceived as an opportunity to be exposed to different mindsets and new ways of socializing. They hoped studying abroad would help them find like-minded people.

As the focus of this UX research was on how to elicit excitement from students, we asked the interviewees to imagine their bags are packed and they are about to travel to their study destination. We then asked them to imagine what they are most excited about. What is the first thing they want to do?

The top answers were:

• Trying new food – the most frequent source of excitement mentioned in the interviews.

• Experiencing the city – students are intrigued by city architecture, skylines, and infrastructure.

• Meeting new people/cultures – new social connections are a key source of excitement.

• Campus facilities – exploring the campus and cutting-edge facilities.

These are the experiences that are removed from the rational reasoning behind studying abroad. They can almost be seen as the ‘guilty pleasures’ that prospective students are excited about but are quite apart from the default rational answers (they wouldn’t necessarily divulge these answers to their parents, let’s say).

Students are aware that studying abroad is a huge investment for themselves and their families, but when are asked about what excites them the most, they mention things aside from the academic and graduate outcomes that will provide return on their investment.

Trying new food was one of the most talked about experiences, and while international education messaging/marketing is always going to be predominantly focused on the rational side of education, providing content about the ‘real experience’ of studying abroad will help to excite prospective students.

This qualitative research shows us that having fun experiences during a student’s time studying abroad is top of mind and sits firmly alongside the rational reasons, such as good graduate opportunities and outcomes. So, institutions must consider how they can market themselves to encourage this excitement. What clubs and experiences does your institution provide for students? How do we inform prospective students about the opportunities that will excite them?

When we asked students what their immediate fears about international education were, their responses were predominantly unrelated to the rational components of why they want to study abroad – i.e. succeeding, achieving good grades, finding good employment, etc. The most immediate fears were about the experiential side of the study abroad journey. Concerns were largely about not fitting in, language barriers, loneliness, safety, etc.

The language barrier was mentioned in almost all the interviews as a key source of concern for prospective international students who are fearful it might hinder their ability to achieve the sense of belonging they are looking for.

Similarly, five out of six interviewees told us not fitting into a new culture was a prime source of fear and anxiety. This is directly related to the experiential goal of ‘broadening cultural horizons’, and the fear of making cultural or behavioural mistakes was mentioned frequently.

Four out of six subjects told us that potential loneliness and feeling homesick was a concern despite the excitement about finding new communities in their study destinations.

Two out of six interviewees mentioned safety as a source of fear when studying abroad.

Once we know what prospective students fear most, we can provide the information, services and support to help them feel confident about their journey. Institutions and agents can therefore provide the content that will help reassure students they will be supported when they arrive.

IDP teams use this type of research so we can present the right content to prospective students at the top of the funnel.

These are the questions we must ask:

• Are we inspiring students to achieve their ambitions and potential?

• Are we exciting them by providing aspirational information?

In terms of UX, your website might be easy to use, it might be trusted and high-ranking, but if your content does not inspire visitors, they are likely to turn away quickly.

BJ Fogg is an author and Behavioral Scientist at Stanford University. His model posits that any behavior requires three elements: people must be motivated to behave in a certain way, they must have the ability to carry out the behavior and, lastly, they must be triggered (or prompted) to do the behavior. If one of these elements is missing, then the desired behavior will not happen, hence B=MAT (or B=MAP).

Several factors increase motivation, and they broadly fall into positive and negative influences: seeking pleasure as opposed to avoiding pain, seeking hope as opposed to avoiding fear, and seeking acceptance as opposed to avoiding rejection.

Our student interviewees had some very specific factors in mind when we asked them about their motivation to study abroad and these fall into the positive and negative motivational categories.

To inspire students to act – to click on a link on your webpage, to seek further information about a program, or to apply to your institution – we must give them great content that explains and motivates, clearly show them how they can make something happen (ability) and provide the clear CTAs (triggers/prompts) they need.

By providing the right content you can allay student fears and inspire excitement to study at your institution.

Choosing the right content

When choosing content to inspire prospective international students, we need to think as they think. We asked the interviewees to look at some Hotcourses webpages and share their thoughts. The pages scored well in almost all areas; however, when it came to ‘inspiration’ some of the pages scored lower than we would have hoped.

Images must connect with your audience

Here’s an example of the findings. We showed the students a typical inquiry page. At the top of the page, the image showed a young woman in business casual attire, wearing a headset, and looking at a laptop screen. To us, this image represented the nature of the page i.e. to help students contact us and to provide reassurance that a real person would be available to talk to them. However, the students questioned, “Why is there someone working at a call centre here?”

“These images feel kind of empty,” was another comment, as well as, “it’s missing some energy.” When we looked again at the image, we realized that while it made perfect sense to us, it was not at all inspiring to our user audience – it was seen as irrelevant and not exciting.

Ultimately users wanted to see a bright color palette, high-quality images, and more destination-related subjects.

Videos and user-generated content

When looking at one webpage, one student commented, “There are no videos here… nobody wants to read long articles.” Research shows that users make up their minds very quickly whether the webpage they have landed on is relevant. While long and numerous paragraphs of text may contain all the information the visitor is looking for, if their attention is not captured immediately, they will leave the website quickly or without interacting at all (a ‘bounce’).

Videos can be a great way of getting visitors to stay on your page and interact, especially if they are created by student peers or ambassadors (user-generated content) and offer a unique and inspiring perspective.

Learn more about peer-to-peer content in our article: Connecting Prospective Students with Experienced Students: Why Peer-to-Peer Engagement is Valuable and Effective

Jacopo Villanacci, UX Researcher at IDP who conducted the research interviews, told us, “The ultimate goal is to embed the kind of experiential goals that students have been telling us about into our communication strategies.”

For example, a vacation company doesn’t just tell you about the hotels you can choose; the brochure or the website will also tell you all about the experiences you can have while you’re there, the culture you can enjoy, the dining experiences you can choose from. This is the way they promote the total package of a holiday experience, and this is an important factor in the content we present to prospective students.

Finding a community is extremely important for prospective students; it can be the difference between excelling and struggling in a new and very different study environment than at home.

Making sure we address the fears that students have must be a focus for our content. And it’s not only the fear of failing in the academic fields that is a concern; students tell us they are worried that they will fail to have the experiences they desire, they will fail to have fun. This is critical.

Jacopo adds, “Students want clarity and trust. As they search online for information about international education, they are bombarded with content and this can be extremely off-putting.

“Many users in top student markets are looking for the social channels of people who are already studying abroad; they search for series of videos on YouTube and other platforms that give them a variety of perspectives on different experiences in different destinations – the good and the bad, the successes and the failures. The thumbnails of the videos are extremely important to catch the attention.”

Our large-scale Emerging Futures research helps us understand the perceptions and motivations of students across the globe so we can provide the support and services they need and so IDP can amplify the voices of students to stakeholders, governments and decision-makers. It helps us understand large overarching concepts such as how students define ‘high-quality education’.

Our small-scale, user-focused UX research can help us understand more about some of the experience-motivated desires and fears that students have, so we can tailor our messaging accordingly and provide the content to excite and inspire.