Higher Ed Pulse Surveys Help Colleges and Universities Take Action to Support Student Success

Mainstay launches survey tool to provide institutions with unique insight into students attitudes and well-being; enable immediate action through popular AI-powered engagement platform

BOSTON, Dec. 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Colleges and universities have a new resource to not only understand students' perspectives and challenges on campus, but also respond in real time to boost student success, thanks to a survey tool launched today by Mainstay, whose AI-enabled student engagement platform is used by more than 200 institutions nationwide. Mainstay's Pulse Surveys are designed to provide institutions with real-time insight into students' experiences, which can then directly inform outreach and engagement campaigns through behaviorally intelligent chatbots.

"As the landscape of higher education continues to change, institutions that succeed will be those that prioritize leading by listening," said Dr. Aashir Nasim, Vice President of Institutional Equity, Effectiveness and Success at Virginia Commonwealth University, who served as an advisor during the development of the Pulse Surveys. "Emerging technology is, for the first time, enabling colleges and universities to do that at scale, in ways that can help them not just understand the barriers students face on their way to a degree — but also implement new strategies to remove those barriers in real-time."

A growing body of evidence indicates that prioritizing student mental health and fostering a sense of belonging on campus is critical to institutions' efforts to help students persist on their journey to and through college. Designed to provide colleges and universities with actionable insights Mainstay's Pulse Survey questions are delivered on a monthly basis and cover a variety of topics specific to first-year and returning students, generating insights about students' sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and engagement. The surveys are already helping institutional leaders identify key challenges on campus: in September, nearly one-fifth of respondents said they disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement "I know where to get help with my classes when they are difficult."

In addition to providing real-time insights on student sentiment, information from the Pulse Surveys can help institutions boost engagement and success through Mainstay's unique behaviorally intelligent chatbot. This approach, first used to help institutions dramatically reduce summer melt, has also been found to increase first-generation students' academic performance by a full letter grade, according to a recent pilot study conducted by researchers at Brown University.

"Too often, students who struggle to manage their workload or feel disconnected from their peers don't see an easy avenue to voice those challenges and reach out for support," said Drew Magliozzi, CEO of Mainstay. "This is about helping education leaders better understand student sentiment in real time — in a way that can inform their work to boost students' self-efficacy and remove roadblocks in their path to graduation." 

Mainstay has used behavioral intelligence to help colleges increase access, persistence, and success for more than 7 million students nationwide since its founding in 2014. Through partnerships with colleges and universities, employers, state higher education systems like the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and nonprofit organizations like the Common App and College Advising Corps, Mainstay designs campaigns and strategies designed to meet the unique needs of individual organizations.

To learn more about how the pulse surveys are helping institutions support student success, join Dr. Aashir Nasim for a virtual conversation on December 13th. Registration and more details are available at this link.

About Mainstay

At Mainstay, we believe one conversation can spark a brighter future. That's why we've evolved the Engagement Platform we developed as AdmitHub to make it easy for colleges and businesses to start and measure conversations that drive action at scale. Everything we do – from our rigorous research methods to the ways we've built empathy and situational context into our conversational AI – is designed to help people take the next step toward achieving their goals.

SOURCE Mainstay