Context
Salaried teacher training courses are highly competitive. Providers can often receive many applications from candidates who do not meet their requirements.
Candidates searching for salaried courses may not realise that financial support is available for some fee-paying courses.
We wanted to reduce the number of unsuitable applications for providers whilst encouraging candidates to consider a wider range of suitable courses.
Pain points
Previous user research on displaying school experience requirements for salaried courses identified several pain points.
Candidates:
- may discount fee-paying courses because they are concerned by the cost of training
- may not know that bursaries are available for certain subjects
- may not realise how competitive salaried courses can be
During the research, one participant suggested showing the salaried course callout box earlier in the journey, on the search results page.
User need
As a candidate, I need to understand when a fee-paying course may be more suitable and what bursaries could be available for my chosen subject.
What we did
We added a callout box to the search results page. The callout encourages candidates searching for salaried teacher training to also consider fee-paying courses.
The callout box appears when candidates filter by both a:
- salaried course and/or apprenticeship
- subject where bursaries are available
The callout box explains that fee-paying courses are less competitive and that eligible UK citizens could receive a bursary.
During user research participants who noticed the information box:
- understood its purpose
- found the advice helpful
- said the advice would encourage them to explore fee-paying routes further
These findings showed that candidates understood the message. However, the research did not tell us explicitly whether candidates would change their search behaviour.
Next steps
We will be building these changes into the service. To understand whether the callout encourages candidates searching for salaried training to explore fee-paying courses, we will measure
- how often candidates interact with the callout box
- whether candidates change their filters after seeing it
- whether candidates go on to view fee-paying courses
This will help us understand whether the callout changes candidate behaviour, as well as whether candidates find the advice useful.