Can communication technologies reduce loneliness and social isolation in older people?: a scoping review of reviews

Background: Loneliness and social isolation in older age are considered major public health concerns and research on technology-based solutions is growing rapidly. This scoping review of reviews aims to summarize the communication technologies (CTs) (review question RQ1), theoretical frameworks (RQ2), study designs (RQ3), and positive effects of technology use (RQ4) present in the research field. Methods: A comprehensive multi-disciplinary, multi-database literature search was conducted. Identified reviews were analyzed according to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) framework. A total of N = 28 research reviews that cover 248 primary studies spanning 50 years were included. Results: The majority of the included reviews addressed general internet and computer use (82% each) (RQ1). Of the 28 reviews, only one (4%) worked with a theoretical framework (RQ2) and 26 (93%) covered primary studies with quantitative-experimental designs (RQ3). The positive effects of technology use were shown in 55% of the outcome measures for loneliness and 44% of the outcome measures for social isolation (RQ4). Conclusion: While research reviews show that CTs can reduce loneliness and social isolation in older people, causal evidence is limited and insights on innovative technologies such as augmented reality systems are scarce

The Art of Knowledge Exchange: A Results-Focused Planning Guide for Development Practitioners

Designing and implementing knowledge exchange initiatives can be a big undertaking. This guide takes the guesswork out of the process by breaking it down into simple steps and providing tools to help you play a more effective role as knowledge connector and learning facilitator

Instructional Systems Design and the Diffusion and Adoption of Technology: (Volume 1)

Instructional designers, instructional systems designers, and other educational technologists are, by their nature, innovators. These professionals apply and extend the applied science of learning, systems, communication, and instructional design theory to help students learn. Technology in some capacity is used to make the connections between subject matter experts, teachers, instructors, and their learners. It is common for instructional designers to seek new tools, techniques, and innovations for the improvement of learning, access, quality, and student satisfaction. However, the adoption and diffusion of new educational technology and innovation is a complex process that depends on many variables. Understanding these processes and variables can help designers and technology leaders successfully implement positive change. This book serves as a brief summary of innovation diffusion models, organizational change models, and serves as an introduction to the work of a group of talented instructional designers who have explored specific aspects of educational technology adoption and diffusion. Together we hope that you find these cases, examples, and lessons learned insightful and help you plan for an innovation diffusion of your own.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/distancelearning_books/1004/thumbnail.jp

Perspectives on use of a telehealth service-delivery model as a component of school-based occupational therapy practice: designing a "user experience"

Telehealth is “the application of evaluative, consultative, preventative, and therapeutic services delivered through telecommunication and information technologies,” (AOTA, 2014, p. S69). The evidence literature provides support for the use of a telehealth service-delivery model in occupational therapy (OT) practice within various settings. The use of telehealth in pediatric occupational therapy has been shown to be effective by increasing access to specialist care and preventing delays in provision of services (Cason, 2014), increasing collaboration and carry-over of treatment strategies (Gibbs & Toth-Cohen, 2011), and improving overall therapist/client satisfaction (Ashburner, 2016; Criss, 2013; Reifenberg, et al., 2017; Zylstra, 2013). Despite the effectiveness of a telehealth service-delivery model, the use of telehealth in occupational therapy practice is limited, potentially due to a lack of knowledge about telehealth. Education is a critical factor necessary to promote successful implementation of telehealth in clinical practice (Nissen & Brockevelt, 2016). In order to educate schoolbased working professionals, including OT practitioners and school district administrators, about the use of telehealth, an asynchronous, online educational program about the use of telehealth is proposed. A participatory action research model was used in the initial phase of the project. School-based occupational therapists, certified occupational therapy assistants, district administrators, and related technology staff were invited to complete a survey intended to explore attitudes about the use of telehealth. Results of the survey guided the formation and implementation of a client-centered program designed to educate participants about the potential benefits and barriers to the use of telehealth in a pediatric, school-based setting. Stakeholders were invited to complete the online educational program about telehealth and complete a post-program survey to reflect on any knowledge gained as a result of the course. This educational program addresses a gap in knowledge, experience, and awareness of telehealth among occupational therapy practitioners and school district stakeholders. Further collaboration between occupational therapy practitioners and researchers is needed to continue to explore potential uses of telehealth within a school-based setting.2019-10-23T00:00:00

Integration of emerging motion capture technologies and videogames for human upper-limb telerehabilitation: A systematic review

Integrating emerging technologies has shown to have the potential to improve access to rehabilitation services and the adherence for physical therapy when they are applied into telemedicine environments. This systematic review aims to explore telerehabilitation systems that use motion capture and video games for upper-limb rehabilitation purposes. Motion capture was focused on the information fusion from inertial sensors and other technologies. The search was limited to 2010-2013, from which 667 papers were obtained; afterwards, duplicate papers were removed, thus, reducing the sample to 57 papers with full text availability. Finally, only 3 of them were selected by approaching the subject of this study. We conclude that the fusion information from inertial sensors and other motion capture technologies appears to be a new tendency in remote monitoring of motor rehabilitation process. However, the combination of them with active video games in physiotherapy programs is only an emerging research area with promising results

Personality and technology: Big five personality traits as descriptors of universal acceptance and usage of technology UTAUT.

Presently, information professionals are progressively dependent on information and communication technologies to complete their everyday tasks. As, result dependence on PC frameworks, programming and data innovation-related technologies are increasing for better working and providing quality services. Therefore, to understand, analyze and evaluate the acceptance and use of this technology several models of technology acceptance and use have been formulated in information science literature. Using eight such models, Venkatesh, Morris, Davis and Davis proposed a unified model called the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology or (UTAUT) model. The UTAUT model has been studied and analyzed in various spheres including education, banking, health, tourism, e-government services and its recent application in the personality studies. The application of UTAUT model to the core constructs of big five personality traits have been utilized to predict the adoption and usage of technology according to different personality types such as neurotic, open to experience, extravert, conscientious and agreeabl

From Newton To Gates-Digital Principia

Computers are becoming the norm for teaching and learning. The Internet gives people ready access to text, visual and audio messages from around the world. For teachers, content is critical and the future dictates the need for major changes in the role of the teacher and learner. Today’s digital tools and video games have proven to be well known motivators. This paper stressed the importance for educators to develop content using these tools and games. We are in the world of interaction and need to be prepared for even more technological advancements. To the extent that instructors keep up with future innovations, will dictate how well these challenges are met and utilized for the betterment of the teaching/learning process

Validación automática de guías de accesibilidad e videojuegos

Trabajo de Fin de Grado en Desarrollo de Videojuegos, Facultad de Informática UCM, Departamento de Ingeniería del Software e Inteligencia Artificial, Curso 2021/2022.Accessibility is a fundamental aspect of video games. Any player should be able to enjoy a game, independently of their physical ability. All around the world, governments and associations have implemented standards for game developers to make sure their video games can be enjoyed by everyone. One of the cases to keep in mind when developing games, and the one this project is based on, is the case of people with deficient color vision or nearsightedness. These users can have difficulties seeing text in-game when it is relatively small when compared to screen size or when its color does not have enough contrast with the background. It is commonplace for companies to have a considerable team of testers who manually check for legal accessibility requirements as well as ensuring the quality of the product. These checks, although simple, are time consuming, taking up valuable time that could be used for more complex checks that could only be made by humans. Moreover, tendency to create increasingly content-packed games creates less manageable workloads for manual checks. For this project, a tool has been developed that automates the text detection and calculates its size and relative luminance contrast with the background. This tool is used to verify that a series of accessibility criteria are being met.La accesibilidad es un aspecto fundamental de los videojueogos. Todos los jugadores, independientemente de sus capacidades fisicas, deben poder disfrutar de ellos. Alrededor del mundo, distintos gobiernos y asociaciones han creado estándares con los que medir la accesibilidad de los videojuegos para que puedan ser disfrutados por todos los públicos. Uno de estos casos que hay que tener en cuenta al desarrollar videojuegos, y en el cual se centra este trabajo, es el de las personas con discapacidad visual como el daltonismo o la miopía. Ellos pueden tener dificultad para ver bien el texto en un juego cuando este es muy pequeño en relación al tamaño de la pantalla o cuando no hay suficiente contraste de color entre la letra y el fondo. A dia de hoy es comun que las empresas cuenten con una extensa plantilla de testers que comprueba manualmente los requerimientos legales y la calidad del juego. Estas comprobaciones, aunque sencillas, resultan laboriosas y consumen un tiempo muy valioso que podría dedicarse a pruebas sólo realizables por humanos. Además, la tendencia a crear juegos que tienen cada vez más contenido hace que este sea un volumen de trabajo cada vez menos asumible por una fuerza de trabajo manual. Este trabajo consiste en el desarrollo una herramienta que permite automatizar el reconocimiento de texto para detectar su tamaño y su contraste con el fondo, para asegurarnos de que cumple una serie de criterios que aseguran su accesibilidad a varios públicos.Depto. de Ingeniería de Software e Inteligencia Artificial (ISIA)Fac. de InformáticaTRUEunpu

Investigating Technologically Advanced Job Interview Approaches

Die technologische Entwicklung stellt Unternehmen vor die Herausforderung informierte Entscheidungen über technologische Lösungen für organisationale Prozesse zu treffen. Besonders auffällig ist das im Falle von Bewerbungsgesprächen, bei denen in der Praxis wenig erforschte Technologien verwendet werden. Infolgedessen können Unternehmen über die Einflüsse technologiegestützter Bewerbungsgespräche (z.B. digitale Interviews) auf den Interviewprozess nur spekulieren. Meine Doktorarbeit soll die Forschung zu technologiegestützen Bewerbungsgesprächen in vier Schritten modernisieren. Erstens entwickle ich eine psychometrisch fundierte Skala zur Messung von Creepiness. Diese soll die Forschung zur Akzeptanz neuer Technologien unterstützen. Zweitens vergleiche ich digitale Interviews mit Videokonferenz-Interviews. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass digitale Interviews weniger akzeptiert und dass Bewerbende in digitalen Interviews besser bewertet werden. Drittens antizipiere ich die Zukunft des Bewerbungsgesprächs und untersuche ein algorithmusbasiertes Bewerbungsgespräch. Das algorithmusbasierte Bewerbungsgespräch führte zu negativeren Bewerberreaktionen als ein Videokonferenz-Interview. Im vierten Schritt erweitern zwei weiteren Studien die vorangegangenen Erkenntnisse indem versucht wird, negative Bewerberreaktionen durch Informationen zu technologisch fortschrittlichen Bewerbungsgesprächen vorzubeugen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen eine komplexe Beziehung zwischen Informationen und Akzeptanz. Weiterhin scheinen rechtfertigende Informationen besser als Prozessinformationen zu sein, um Bewerberreaktionen zu verbessern. Zusammengefasst zeigt meine Dissertation, dass die Anwendung neuer Technologien für die Personalauswahl wohl durchdacht sein sollte und dass Forschung zu klassischen Bewerbungsgesprächen möglicherweise nicht auf technologisch fortschrittliche Bewerbungsgespräche übertragbar ist. Schlussendlich ruft meine Dissertation zu weiterer Forschung bezüglich des Einflusses neuer Technologien in der Personalauswahl auf.Technology and its use has an immense effect on our daily lives. For instance, the recent rapid technological evolution has led to a myriad of technological solutions for organizational procedures. This challenges organizations to stay up-to-date and to make informed decisions about implementing and investing in technologically advanced procedures. In the context of job interviews, the technology that is used in practice has outpaced the research on the use of these technologies. As a consequence, researchers and practitioners can only speculate about how modern job interviews (e.g., digital interviews) affect outcomes such as applicant reactions and interview performance ratings. My dissertation therefore aims to update the research on technologically advanced job interviews in four steps. First, I provide a study on the development of a psychometrically sound measure of creepiness as a new perspective on research involving acceptance of technology-based situations. Second, I present a study comparing the emerging interview form of digital interviews with videoconference interviews showing that digital interviews can impair applicants’ reactions but increase applicants’ performance ratings. Third, I attempt to foreshadow the future of job interviewing technology by investigating an algorithm-based job interview with a virtual agent as the interviewer; results showed diminished applicant reactions compared to videoconference interviews. Fourth, two additional studies incorporate the aforementioned findings and attempt to buffer negative applicant reactions with information preceding technologically advanced job interviews. The results indicate a complex relation between information and acceptance and that justification information is better than process information to improve applicant reactions. All things considered, my dissertation implies that careful design is needed for personnel selection technology, that previous research in non-technological job interview settings might not translate to situations including novel technologies, and it calls for further research to investigate the influence of technology on personnel selection.Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Projekt Empa