COVID-19 Testing in Schools

Crafting a human-centred COVID testing programme in the UK

Date: Sept 2020 - Feb 2021

Role: Service and research designer

I was the principal service designer and researcher for the UK's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in schools. This involved a national rollout of routine COVID testing in over 46,000 schools across the country, aimed at catching asymptomatic cases. The end-to-end service included communications, enrolment, operating procedure, and results tracking for students (aged 12-18) and school staff. I lead a team of 2 researchers to help with conducting research and analysis.

The school COVID testing programme was focussed primarily on the operations and scaling when we joined. The team was doing impressive work to get the programme off the ground, but no one had considered the experience for students and staff going through the service. We identified there needed to be an evaluation of the experience so it could be improved as the testing programme scaled. While this would dramatically change the way the team was working before, they saw the benefit and helped mobilise the team to conduct research.

Gathering the Insights

I planned and delivered a qualitative study to measure the end-user experience of the service. The programme piloted in 10 schools and the research aimed to inform decisions in the scale-up. The research was a mixed-method approach, involving:

15 interviews with students, staff, and parents
Observations of the service at 10 schools across the UK
A qualitative survey sent to all participants, with 1000 respondents

Synthesising the Data

Interview quotes were captured in Miro. We used a data collection structure to streamline analysis: user group, research objective, research theme. This enabled us to pull themes directly from the area we were testing

The raw data from the survey was translated into a data analytics dashboard (Power BI) which enabled us to interactively explore the data and spot themes

The qual interviews and the quant survey data were married into key themes that formed a research analysis report with insights and recommendations

Key Learnings

Our analysis produce a detailed report with recommendations across communications, process, and support. Below are some insights that helped drive these recommendations and formed the basis of future decisions on the programme.

A desire for content, big and small

Participants expect clear, comprehensive, accurate, and timely communication about the testing programme to build confidence. There was an appetite for information about the big picture (why are we testing?) and the details (how does the test work?).

Isolation can cause problems with learning

Both the staff's ability to teach and the student's ability to learn are both severely impacted when in isolation. This brought the importance of considering this scenario as increased testing leads to increased isolation.

Isolation is a deterrent

Isolation could result in parents not being able to work or earn money, causing many to prevent their child from participating. This was important to consider as participation is essential to the programme's success.

Misinformation leading to distrust

COVID-19 is still an evolving topic with new information emerging day by day. Many students did not participate because they were not confident in the guidance from the school, fearing it could put them at greater risk.

This work was instrumental in the shift from operations-led to human-centred

The insights produced from the research was the most in-depth look at the end-user the school's team had so far on the programme. The findings were able to inform countless decisions on the service as it developed and scaled.
The impact of measuring the experience became standardised as other teams adopted the same approach and methodology to assess different pilots and services.

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