OUR INDUSTRIES
Market research for education, EdTech & online learning
Whether your team needs to attract more families to a school, determine which EdTech features deserve investment, or bring a training program online, each decision starts with understanding what learners, educators, and buyers need, and where their priorities differ.
Bixa helps education, EdTech, and online learning organizations make those decisions through market research, product research, and UX research. We conduct research with learners and families as well as business-to-business (B2B) research with the people choosing, funding, and delivering education products.
For a K-12 school, that might mean understanding why parents enroll or look elsewhere. For an EdTech provider, it means learning what teachers need in the classroom and what administrators require before approving a purchase. We combine interviews and surveys to connect those perspectives with decisions about enrollment, product development, and adoption.
Our experience spans campus technology research with Arizona State University, MBA audience research for Forté Foundation, research to inform strategic planning for Vienna Adventist Academy, remote training for RaLytics, and online learning strategy for Citi Ventures.
Schedule a research strategy call
Working through a question about enrollment, a new learning platform, or what institutional buyers need? Talk it through with a senior researcher. We’ll help you find a research approach that gives your team useful answers.
Research for your next education decision
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Understand your audience with market research
Find out how families choose schools, what learners look for in a program, and how institutions decide which EdTech products to buy. Audience segmentation and persona research help you decide whom to reach, what matters to each group, and what might keep them from enrolling or buying.
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Build programs and products people will actually use
A course topic can sound interesting without earning a place in someone’s workday. A feature can impress a buyer without helping the educator who uses it. Bixa’s expertise in product research helps you know with confidence which courses, learning formats, or EdTech features learners would use—before you invest in building them. We test whether a concept solves a real problem, what would make it worth the time or cost, and what to refine before launch.
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Make school websites and learning platforms easier to use
Can a parent find the admissions information they need? Can a learner choose the right course and pick up where they left off? Can an educator fit a new tool into an existing workflow? UX research and usability testing show where people get stuck as they look up tuition, apply to a program, or resume a lesson. Watching families, learners, educators, and administrators use your website or platform helps you decide what to fix first.
Examples of Bixa’s research work in education & eLearning
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Arizona State University: Finding commercial campus uses for a new IoT device
The Cox Connected Environments Collaboratory at Arizona State University partnered with Bixa to explore product-market fit for a new IoT technology on higher education campuses. We conducted concept testing for campus police uniforms, fleet maintenance and safety alerts, and tracking and scheduling for DART transportation services. Research uncovered buyer priorities and adoption barriers, helping the team evaluate feasibility and prioritize opportunities for commercialization.
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Vienna Adventist Academy: Giving a K-8 school community a voice in its future
Facing parent dissatisfaction and declining enrollment, Vienna Adventist Academy needed a clear direction. Bixa combined parent interviews and surveys with focus groups involving board members and school stakeholders. This K-12 market research brought family experiences and institutional priorities into the same planning process. The resulting strategic plan connected community input with the school’s mission, setting focus areas and measurable goals for the next school year. It also informed website improvements that explained the school’s distinct strengths to parents and clarified priorities for the admissions team.
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Forté Foundation: Understanding what makes an MBA feel worth the investment
Bixa surveyed over 200 early-career women, using quantitative audience segmentation and MaxDiff message testing to help Forté Foundation decide which recent college graduates to reach, and what might motivate them to consider an MBA. Three distinct personas revealed differences in career ambitions, interest in business school, and concerns about cost and time. The findings helped this non-profit organization focus its outreach and tailor its messages toward the most compelling messages related to earning potential, lasting skills, and role models.
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RaLytics: Understanding what makes accessibility training worth buying
Bixa interviewed organizations that buy digital accessibility training and tested four training concepts to help RaLytics decide what to launch, refine, or reconsider. The research identified AI and manual accessibility testing as the strongest launch direction, with demand for realistic exercises, role-specific learning, and reinforcement beyond a single course. B2B buyer research also clarified what internal advocates needed to secure approval: specific learning outcomes, clear delivery requirements, and credible evidence of practical value.
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Citi Ventures: Bringing an entrepreneurship program into online learning
Citi Ventures wanted to bring an established, high-profile entrepreneurship and innovation program into interactive online learning. At the start of the project, Bixa used interviews and focus groups with past participants and Citi Ventures employees to understand what made the original program valuable. Findings pointed to practice, feedback, and personal support as elements to preserve in a digital experience that could scale. Our recommendations connected learner personas and employee feedback with next steps for simulations, coaching, and project-based learning.
Questions we help educators and EdTech teams answer
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A school may need to understand which families value its approach and what prevents them from enrolling. An online learning provider may need to distinguish people seeking career advancement from those learning a skill for an immediate work task.
Audience segmentation and persona research identify those differences and turn them into groups your team can act on. Qualitative interviews explore motivations and barriers; quantitative surveys measure patterns across a wider audience. The findings help you prioritize outreach, tailor messages, and decide which needs your program or product should address first.
For B2B EdTech research, we also distinguish what educators need to use a tool from what administrators, budget owners, and procurement teams need to approve it. That helps your team build a case for both adoption and purchase.
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What puts a school on a parent’s shortlist? What convinces an employee that a course deserves their time? What does a university need before considering a new vendor? People need a reason to believe your offer fits their situation. What are they comparing you with, and what would make them hesitate?
Education customer journey research explores how families evaluate schools, learners choose programs, and institutions shortlist providers. We identify the information people seek, the people they consult, and the questions that remain unanswered when they reach a decision.
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Does a parent understand what sets your school apart? Can an employee see how a course will help with their work? Does an administrator see why your platform is worth the investment? Broad promises about “transformative learning” may leave those questions unanswered.
Positioning research and message testing help you explain your value in language each audience understands. Interviews explore how people interpret your claims and what feels credible. Survey methods such as MaxDiff identify which messages are most compelling, helping you prioritize what to say to prospective families, learners, or institutional buyers.
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Live instruction or self-paced modules? A shared foundation or role-specific training? Which tools make the experience better, and which add complexity?
Concept testing, feature prioritization, and UX research help you evaluate those choices. MaxDiff can identify the most and least valued benefits, while conjoint analysis explores trade-offs between features and price. Usability testing shows how people navigate a proposed platform or course. We select methods around your decision, whether that is choosing a training format, setting an EdTech roadmap, or refining a subscription offer.Track awareness, perception, and consideration over time. Brand tracking helps you understand whether your positioning and campaigns are changing how buyers see you, and where there’s still work to do.
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The next step depends on the experience. A prospective student may need to find entry requirements on a university website. A teacher may need to set up a classroom activity in a new tool. An employee may need to return to a course and apply what they learned.
We use interviews, diary studies, and usability testing to understand what supports or interrupts those tasks. Surveys can measure relevance and satisfaction across a wider audience. Your team gets recommendations tied to the action that matters, from improving an inquiry journey to making a learning resource easier to use. If you need to assess skill improvement or workplace impact, we design the study around the evidence those outcomes require.
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An EdTech demo can spark interest, but institutional buyers also need answers about implementation, support, accessibility, budgets, and the effort of changing systems.
Our B2B education market research examines how K-12 schools, universities, and organizational EdTech buyers evaluate providers. Buyer interviews and win-loss research uncover purchase criteria, internal approval processes, and the evidence an advocate needs to build support.
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Parents, board members, educators, and community partners may care deeply about the same school while seeing its future differently.
Surveys, interviews, and stakeholder focus groups give those perspectives a place in the planning process. We help school leaders understand shared priorities, examine differences, and develop a strategic direction grounded in the people the school serves.
Why work with Bixa?
We start with your decision. Whether you’re trying to grow enrollment, launch a course, or improve an EdTech product, that decision shapes whom we recruit and what we ask.
We explain what the findings mean. You’ll get recommendations tied to choices your team can make, such as which families to reach, what to change before launch, or where to simplify enrollment.
We bring qualitative and quantitative research together. Interviews reveal why people make the choices they do. When you need to know how common those views are, surveys help measure them across a wider audience. You get the reasons behind people’s choices and, when needed, a measure of how widespread those patterns are.
We connect learner and buyer perspectives. A useful product needs to work for the people using it and make sense to the people funding it. For an EdTech product, that can mean comparing what learners and teachers need day to day with what school leaders need to approve and support adoption.
Bixa’s experience in education spans independent schools, higher education, EdTech, corporate training, and online learning, including the connected technologies that help campuses operate.
Your education & EdTech market research questions, answered
Curious about the role market research plays in the education landscape? Below are some of the most common questions we hear from educators, administrators, and academic innovators.
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Start with the decision your team needs to make. You might need parent interviews to understand school choice, concept testing to evaluate a course, or buyer research to explore demand for a new EdTech product. We’ll help identify the audience and approach most likely to answer your question.
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Yes. We can research learners and families as well as educators, administrators, procurement teams, and corporate learning and development buyers. Some studies need both perspectives, particularly when the person using a product differs from the person purchasing it.
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Qualitative research explores why people think and behave as they do. Quantitative research helps measure the patterns. Interviews might reveal an unexpected enrollment barrier or unmet training need; a survey can then help determine which audiences experience it most often.
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Yes, absolutely! Concept testing explores whether people understand an offer, see a need for it, and find it worth considering.
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UX research and usability testing show where people struggle to complete tasks like finding tuition information, enrolling in a course, or resuming a lesson. Bixa watches families, learners, educators, or administrators use your site or platform and asks what they expected at each step. The findings help you pinpoint what’s causing confusion and decide what to fix first.
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Research can assess different parts of the experience, including usability, relevance, knowledge, and application. The study design needs to match the claim. Positive feedback shows how participants perceived a course; demonstrating skill improvement or workplace impact requires evidence designed to measure those outcomes.
Let’s talk about the most pressing decision in front of you
Trying to grow enrollment, test a new course, or improve an EdTech product? Bring your questions. We’ll bring a researcher who can help you think them through.
Book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session with a senior researcher at Bixa right now.
