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Higher Education & Research
Student engagement in higher education shapes persistence, learning and wellbeing, yet it is often measured too late to act on. We help institutions read early behavioral signals, design for belonging and support faculty and leaders through change.
The people side of higher education & research.
Colleges and universities hold rich data about students: admissions records, learning management system activity, advising notes, financial aid, housing and survey results. Yet student engagement in higher education is often understood only through end-of-term grades and retention reports. By the time a student withdraws, the behavioral signals that preceded the decision, such as fewer logins, missed advising appointments or withdrawal from campus activities, have usually been visible for weeks in systems no one integrated.
Belonging is central. Students who feel they matter to faculty and peers are more likely to seek help, persist through setbacks and engage deeply with learning. First-generation students, transfer students, adult learners and students from underrepresented groups may face additional barriers to that sense of belonging. Inside the institution, faculty carry teaching, research and service loads, advisors manage large caseloads and leaders navigate shared governance. Change initiatives often stall because they ask busy people to adopt new practices without designing for their reality.
Current forces add urgency: demographic shifts in the college-age population, public questions about value, growing mental health needs, hybrid and online learning, and AI tools that change how students study and how faculty teach. Research institutions face an additional challenge in translating discoveries into accessible knowledge and practice. Institutions that approach these issues with behavioral science, grounded in learning research and measurement, can make better decisions and support both learners and the people who teach them.
What leaders are up against.
Early warning signals that arrive late
Many institutions run early alert systems, yet alerts often depend on faculty reports or midterm grades that surface problems after students have already disengaged. Behavioral data from learning platforms, advising and campus services could provide earlier insight, but it is rarely integrated or validated against outcomes like persistence and completion.
Belonging that is uneven across students
Students who doubt whether they belong may avoid office hours, hesitate to ask questions and interpret setbacks as signs they should leave. Those doubts are more common among students navigating college without family experience or community models. Belonging initiatives often lack clear behavioral targets and measures, making it hard to know what helps.
Faculty capacity and adoption of new practices
Faculty are asked to adopt active learning, new technologies, inclusive pedagogy and AI policies while maintaining research and service. Mandates without support breed resistance, and good practices spread slowly. Change efforts rarely examine the motivation, ability and prompts faculty need to try something new and sustain it.
Advising and support services that students miss
Tutoring, counseling, career services and financial aid offices can transform a student's experience, but many students who would benefit never use them. Barriers include stigma, uncertainty about eligibility, scheduling friction and simply not knowing a service exists. Outreach often reaches students already inclined to seek help.
Research that does not reach practice
Universities produce knowledge with real public value, yet much of it remains inaccessible to the practitioners, policymakers and communities who could use it. Translation requires understanding audiences, designing usable formats and measuring uptake, skills that are not always rewarded or resourced within academic structures.
Where we focus.
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Student engagement signals and KPIs
We integrate learning platform, advising, enrollment and survey data to identify behaviors that predict persistence and success for different student populations. Behavioral Signals Design turns those findings into predictive KPIs and clear hypotheses, so advisors and leaders can act earlier and test which forms of outreach help students re-engage.
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Learning and belonging design
We work with faculty, student affairs and academic leaders to design courses, orientation and support experiences that build competence, autonomy and connection. Grounded in learning research and self-determination theory, interventions target specific moments, such as the first weeks of a term, and are evaluated with appropriate measures.
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Measurement and survey design
Applying psychometrics, we help institutions design or refine measures of engagement, belonging and wellbeing that are reliable and useful for decisions. We also connect survey results with behavioral data, so institutions can see whether what students report aligns with what they do and which interventions affect both.
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Faculty and leader change support
We help academic leaders design change initiatives around faculty reality, identifying small, high-value practices and the support needed to adopt them. Coaching for deans, chairs and senior leaders addresses alignment and communication in shared governance settings, so new practices spread through peer influence rather than mandate alone.
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Research translation and dissemination
We help research centers and faculty translate findings into formats that practitioners and the public can use, from briefs and toolkits to workshops and digital resources. Audience research and testing ensure materials are understood and acted on, and impact measurement tracks whether knowledge actually reaches practice.
The social good at stake.
Higher education expands opportunity, advances knowledge and prepares people to contribute to their communities. When students disengage and leave, they often carry debt without the credential and lose confidence that education is for them. Behavioral science advances the mission by identifying students who need support earlier, designing environments where more learners feel they belong and helping faculty adopt practices that improve learning. It also helps research institutions share accessible scientific knowledge beyond campus, closing the gap between discovery and the people whose lives it could improve.
Frequently asked questions.
How can institutions improve student engagement in higher education?
Start by defining which engagement behaviors predict success for your students, then look for those signals in existing data. Many institutions find that early behaviors, such as consistent learning platform use or connecting with an advisor, matter more than demographic risk factors. Interventions designed around those behaviors and tested carefully tend to be more effective than broad campaigns.
Do you use predictive models to flag students?
We use behavioral analysis to identify signals and patterns, and we are careful about how predictions are applied. Flags should prompt supportive outreach, not labels that limit opportunity. We examine models for bias across student groups, involve advisors and students in designing responses and measure whether outreach actually helps the students it reaches.
Can you support faculty development without adding to faculty workload?
That is a central design goal. We identify small, high-value practices that fit existing routines, provide ready-to-use resources and build peer communities where faculty can learn from each other. Leadership coaching helps chairs and deans protect time for change. The aim is adoption that feels like a relief rather than another obligation.
Relevant services.
Education & Learning Design
Design courses and learning programs that change what people actually do, grounded in adult learning principles, behavioral science and real evaluation.
ExploreBehavioral Signals Design
Our signature method for finding the behaviors that predict your outcomes and turning them into predictive KPIs, testable hypotheses and focused experiments.
ExploreSurvey & Measurement Design
Build surveys and measurement instruments that are reliable, valid and ready to inform decisions, grounded in psychometrics rather than in guesswork.
ExploreBehavioral Change Management
Change management grounded in behavioral science: define the behaviors change requires, remove barriers, design prompts and measure adoption as it happens.
ExploreResearch Translation & Knowledge Dissemination
Make scientific knowledge accessible and usable for clinicians, educators, policymakers and the public, through tested knowledge translation and dissemination strategies.
ExploreImpact Measurement & Evaluation
Measure whether programs are changing behavior and outcomes, with logic models, behavioral indicators and evaluation designs suited to real-world constraints.
ExploreFurther reading.
Closing the Research-to-Practice Gap
Why good evidence so often fails to change real-world practice, and how knowledge translation, behavioral design and implementation science can close the research-to-practice gap.
Read
Psychometrics for Business Surveys
How the science of psychological measurement makes business surveys trustworthy, from reliability and validity to item writing, scale design and connecting survey scores to behavior.
ReadLet’s talk about the people problem in front of you.
Every engagement begins with a conversation. Tell us what you are facing and we will tell you, candidly, how we would approach it.
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