A group of students are using surveys to gather information about Student Publications at Nicholls State University as a part of marketing research class.

The survey is part of a service-learning project in Marketing 485 at Nicholls. The course requires students to work in groups to collect data, write a report, and give an oral presentation for a client who has marketing research needs. J. Robert Field, assistant professor of Marketing and Management, seeks out potential clients who have a need for marketing research at the beginning of each semester.

“I send out E-mails to faculty and staff asking for projects but I always specify that it has to somehow be marketing related,” Field said. “I try to get a pool of projects and then let the students select a client from that pool.”

A group of students interested in the student newspaper and yearbook at Nicholls selected Student Publications to be their client. Field said that the group selected Student Publications because they thought it would be a good opportunity to improve the readership of the student newspaper, The Nicholls Worth, and help people to pick up the student yearbook, La Pirogue.

“They felt that it would be a project that they could really sink their teeth into and that they would seek benefit from,” Field said.

The group met up with the adviser and several staff members of Student Publications to come up with objectives for the research. Marketing senior Jessica St. Pierre, one of the group members, said that their research will have a positive impact on student writers and photographers by finding out that can make The Nicholls Worth and La Pirogue more appealing to students.

“We’re aiming to determine the print readership of The Nicholls Worth, access online activity, and gauge reader’s interest of The Nicholls Worth and La Pirogue,” St. Pierre said. “The findings of our research can help Student Publications to improve The Nicholls Worth and La Pirogue.”

The group will organize the results of the survey into a report and present the information to Student Publications.

“The information collected from the survey may directly impact how Student Publications decides to operate in the future,” St. Pierre said. “I can’t tell exactly what aspects will be improved until the survey is closed and we put the report together.”

The group is required to look at secondary data sources to investigate how other campuses are dealing with low readership and low pick up rate of their newspapers and yearbooks. This will help to determine if these issues are present on other campuses and if so, what is being done about it. Field said that he is interested to see the survey results.

“It will be interesting to see the recommendations that the people taking the surveys comes up with and if they will make a difference,” Field said. “Hopefully it does.”

Click here to participate in the survey before it closes on Monday, Apr. 27, 2015.