Behaviour Insights for Policy Design
Government Service, 2018
Role: Researcher, Workshop Facilitator
Throughout my three-month internship at the Ministry of Education (MOE), I fully immersed myself in the qualitative research process of a behavioural insights project. This comprehensive experience included everything from conducting in-depth interviews and leading synthesis workshops to collecting valuable feedback through the trial of paper prototypes with participants.
Upon my arrival, the team had already completed a quantitative analysis to assess the policy program's effectiveness and success metrics. This analysis highlighted the program's engagement levels at key milestones.
Moving forward, diving into the depths of qualitative research is essential to thoroughly comprehend the nuances of the current student program, in order to enable enhancements that are aligned with the targeted policy objectives.
My role included
- Recruiting participants for in-depth interview sessions through targeted emails and personalised phone calls
- Crafting detailed interview scripts
- Conducting individual interviews on-site with a diverse group of 20 students, each session lasting an hour
- Preparing and conducting synthesis workshop
- Creating and testing paper prototype
Methodology
- User Interview
- Affinity Mapping (creating archetypes)
- Paper prototype
Reflections...
The entire journey of conducting generative research through in-depth interviews, synthesising workshop, and prototyping ideas was an eye-opening experience for me.
I also learned a lot about the details of preparing for research studies, and how to facilitate a workshop for different team members to collaborate.
Although I ended my internship before I could see the final prototype that was produced, I heard from the team that they proceeded to conduct Randomised Controlled Trials in selected schools across Singapore.
The outcome was impactful because it serves to improve the way the policy adds value to the student's lives. And this made it a meaningful internship for me as well.
