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Translating the #RelationshipGoals Curriculum to an Online Delivery Model

Tl;dr: I conducted generative and evaluative research to inform the translation of an in-person relationship and sex education program (The #RelationshipGoals Project) to an online delivery model for Kansas teenagers. To inform the development of the online product, I conducted a focus group and 1:1 interviews with the final cohort of students in the in-person program and their parents and conducted primary and secondary research on what students want from relationship and sex education programs, resulting in the publication of 2 peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles and 4 presentations at 3 local and international conferences. As project manager, I then led a team of 5 graduate students to convert the in-person curriculum to an online format using actionable insights from these findings. I designed and conducted 3 studies using unmoderated usability tests assessing curriculum materials, website design, and 2 longitudinal online student outcome surveys which I co-created. I also established a user panel of 3 teenagers in our target user demographic, even in the face of little to no buy-in from our target users. The integration of mine and my team's data-driven actionable insights resulted in the successful launch of the fully functional 15-module curriculum as an online education product.

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Project Background and Goals

The #RelationshipGoals Project (#RG) is a relationship and sexuality education program that was developed by Kansas State University faculty and students (including me). The #RG curriculum covers a wide variety of topics including healthy relationships, sexual safety, mental health, communication skills, and red flags of relationship violence. The #RG curriculum was delivered in-person to junior high school students by research scientists (including me) in a central Kansas school district for 3 years.

 

In this in-person delivery format, the #RG curriculum was only reaching a small number of teenagers each year in one small location. With the goal of delivering this education to more Kansas teenagers, #RG received an additional round of funding from the Administration for Children and Families so it could be converted to an online delivery model for all Kansas teenagers 13-19 years old.

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I was hired as a research scientist and project manager to achieve 4 goals:

  1. Assess what teenagers and young adults want and need from relationship and sexuality education programs

  2. Solicit feedback on the #RG curriculum from previous students of the in-person #RG program and their parents

  3. Test the usability of the #RG online curriculum and it's UI, including 2 required longitudinal student outcome surveys

  4. Lead a team of 5 graduate students to convert, design, and launch the #RG curriculum as a fully functional online education product. This included updating the curriculum to include actionable insights from goals #1 and #2.

Challenges

  • No market research or needs assessments were conducted with Kansas teenagers prior to launching the online #RG curriculum. This meant that we didn't find out there was little to no buy-in or interest in the product from Kansas teenagers until we were deep into the development and introduction phases of the product life cycle.

  • No budget for conducting research with current or potential users

  • Extremely lengthy and extensive process for getting ethics board approval to collect data from teenagers, our target users

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Data collection methods and analyses used: 

focus groups, 1:1 interviews, online qualitative and quantitative surveys, survey design, literature review, affinity diagramming/mapping, content analysis, thematic analysis, usability tests, participatory design, heuristic evaluation

Software used: LearnWorlds, Microsoft Office, Slack, Qualtrics, NVivo

Research Methods

Generative Research

  • Conducted desk research analyzing and synthesizing the body of published scientific literature on what teenagers and young adults want from relationship and sexuality education and the state of sexuality education in the U.S. (113 published studies)

  • Analyzed two secondary datasets of college students' opinions of their sexuality education (6 focus groups and 1 online qualitative survey with 90 participants) using affinity diagramming/mapping

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​Evaluative Research

  • Conducted a focus group with teenagers who completed the original in-person #RG program 

  • Conducted 1:1 interviews with parent-child dyads from the original in-person #RG program

  • Crafted, managed, and conducted 3 studies using unmoderated usability tests with 5 graduate students and 3 university professors assessing curriculum materials, website functionality, and 2 longitudinal quantitative #RG student outcomes surveys

  • Conducted heuristic evaluation of the #RG website

  • Established a user panel of 3 teenagers in our target age group who engaged in participatory design to provide regular feedback on the curriculum and website design and UI. Because many Kansas teenagers were disinterested in the program, we specifically approached these teenagers to participate in the user panel as they had buy-in as relatives of #RG team members and were teenage leaders of local LGBTQIA+ peer groups.

Crucial Findings

  • Teenagers and young adults wanted sexuality education to:

    • Present updated and realistic information

    • Start earlier and be offered more frequently

    • Be taught by trained instructors

    • Cover topics such as: Sexual empowerment, diverse sexual behaviors, LGBTQIA+ identities, sexual health (e.g., STI and pregnancy prevention), what sex entails, anatomy and physiology, college sexual cultures, and the mental, relational and emotional aspects of sex

  • Former in-person #RG students and parents:

    • Found it valuable to learn about healthy relationships, good communication, emotional intelligence, STI protection, signs of abuse, and conflict resolution skills in the program​

    • Reported that the #RG program helped students improve communication with friends and family, set and meet goals, end bad relationships, form new relationships, use conflict resolution skills, and decrease arguing

    • Wanted the #RG curriculum to expand on topics such as love languages, gender and sexual identities, LGBTQIA+ topics, having multiple romantic/sexual partners, and rejecting sexual stereotypes

    • Wanted the #RG curriculum to be delivered so that lessons were shorter but delivered more often, more individualized, open to more ages, and included more details on the topics covered

  • Heuristic evaluation and unmoderated usability tests from a team of 5 graduate students and 3 university professors highlighted:

    • Errors in branching functions in Qualtrics student outcomes surveys depending on selected behaviors and experiences​

    • UI and design issues when accessing the #RG curriculum on mobile devices

    • Confirmation that video and audio playback worked as intended

    • Adherence to UI design heuristics (e.g., aesthetic design, consistency)

  • The teenagers on the #RG user panel suggested:

    • Label each module in the online curriculum as a "level" rather than a "lesson" to sound less like school (aka less boring)

    • Keep the design of the #RG logo and brand colors, they were eye-catching and engaging

    • Gamify the process of progressing through the #RG curriculum with rewards for each module ("level") completion 

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Impact

  • Successful launch of the fully functional 15-module #RG curriculum as an online education product with fully functional longitudinal student outcome surveys

  • Successful integration of the actionable findings from mine and my team's generative and evaluative research into the published online #RG curriculum:

    • Individualized at-your-own-pace lessons available anytime​

    • Open to Kansas teens ages 13-19

    • Expanded content related to sexuality, including LGBTQIA+,  CNM, and socioemotional topics (written by yours truly)

    • Expanded details on topics previous students found most helpful (e.g., communication skills, healthy relationships)

    • Fixed errors in branching functions in Qualtrics student outcomes surveys

    • Fixed UI and design issues on mobile devices

    • Presentation of modules as "levels"

    • Gamification of module ("level") completion with rewards of gift cards and certificates

  • Publication of two scholarly articles in Sex Education and Sexuality Research and Social Policy reporting on teenagers' and young adults' desires and needs from sexuality education

  • 4 presentations of our research findings and lessons learned from launching a teen education product at local and international conferences

My Learnings

1. Doing market research before you launch a product and iteratively throughout product development will save you exponential amounts of time, energy, and money. If we knew prior to development that we had little to no buy-in from our target users, we would have been able to make much different strategic plans and business decisions from the beginning.

2. When you can't directly access target users, get creative. Faced with little to no buy-in from our target users, we identified two teenagers who we thought would be excited about our goals as relatives of #RG team members and as leaders of teenage LGBTQIA+ advocacy projects in the community and asked them to participate on our user panel. Although these two teenagers were biased in favor of teen relationship and sexuality education efforts (see learning #3), they provided a valuable teenage perspective we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

3. It is crucial to recognize how your research participants' bias affects your findings, which affect your product strategy. Conducting usability tests with the team of graduate students, university professors, and two teenagers on our user panel gave us an initial confirmation that the product was functional. However, we could not predict how Kansas teenagers without buy-in would react to our product since the only people giving feedback on the product were part of a group heavily invested in the online curriculum's success as relationship researchers, educators, recipients of the federal grant funding this program, and leaders in LGBTQIA+ advocacy efforts. We could not begin to predict the success of converting users to our product without conducting market research and needs assessments of Kansas teens in the general population.

4. Desk research is invaluable, especially under budget constraints. My team and I were able to identify the wishes and needs related to relationship and sexuality education of an extremely large sample of teenagers and young adults without paying for more than the research scientists' salaries already in place. Analyzing existing research allowed us to integrate certain actionable findings into our product development (e.g., adding more content on socioemotional aspects of sex) long before we could receive approval to collect and analyze primary research. Turns out, many themes in our secondary research findings aligned with the results of the primary research we conducted with #RG students and their parents.

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