Designing Teenage Emotions with a Life of Their Own

In this chapter, two participatory design activities are described in which teenagers create lo-fi designs describing emotions and explain the rationale for their design choices. Designs annotating and describing emotions are categorised as anthropomorphic, abstract, object based, or biomorphic. The chapter concludes: (i) teenagers use a variety of visual metaphors to describe emotions, (ii) teenagers use anthropomorphic visual metaphors most often to describe emotions and (iii) teenagers make more use of abstract and biomorphic visual metaphors to describe ‘negative’ emotions. The effect of materials on designs is analysed, suggesting that teenagers are more likely to create designs describing emotions featuring anthropomorphic visual metaphors when using malleable three-dimensional materials. Suggestions are made for the use of externalisation and personification as part of interactive emotion displays within affective systems. A focus group evaluation of a prototype mobile app is described, which suggests that teenagers place more importance on an affective systems ability to support social relationships than they do its ability to support psychological development. This research will be of value to interaction designers and Child-Computer Interaction researchers seeking to understand how teenagers use different visual metaphors to describe different emotions

Designing Teenage Emotions with a Life of Their Own

In this paper two participatory design activities are described in which teenagers create lo-fi designs describing emotions and explain the rationale for their design choices. Designs annotating and describing emotions are categorised as anthropomorphic, abstract, object based, or biomorphic. The paper concludes that teenagers use a variety of visual metaphors to describe emotions, that teenagers use anthropomorphic visual metaphors the most to describe emotions and that teenagers make more use of abstract and biomorphic visual metaphors to describe 'negative' emotions. The effect of materials on designs is analysed, suggesting that teenagers are more likely to create designs describing emotions featuring anthropomorphic visual metaphors when using malleable threedimensional materials. Suggestions are made for the use of externalisation and personification as part of interactive emotion displays within affective systems. This research will be of value to interaction designers and Child Computer Interaction researchers seeking to understand how teenagers use different visual metaphors to describe different emotions. The contribution of this work is a categorisation of the visual metaphors teenagers use to express different emotions

Too Cool at School - Understanding Cool Teenagers

Cool can be thought about on three levels; the having of cool things, the doing of cool stuff and the being of cool. Whilst there is some understanding of cool products, the concept, of being cool is much more elusive to designers and developers of systems. This study examines this space by using a set of pre-prepared teenage personas as probes with a set of teenagers with the aim of better understanding what is, and isn’t cool about teenage behaviours. The study confirmed that teenagers are able to rank personas in order of cool and that the process of using personas can provide valuable insights around the phenomenon of cool. The findings confirm that cool is indeed about having cool things but in terms of behaviours cool can be a little bit, but not too, naughty

Exploring the Affective Loop

Research in psychology and neurology shows that both body and mind are involved when experiencing emotions (Damasio 1994, Davidson et al. 2003). People are also very physical when they try to communicate their emotions. Somewhere in between beings consciously and unconsciously aware of it ourselves, we produce both verbal and physical signs to make other people understand how we feel. Simultaneously, this production of signs involves us in a stronger personal experience of the emotions we express. Emotions are also communicated in the digital world, but there is little focus on users' personal as well as physical experience of emotions in the available digital media. In order to explore whether and how we can expand existing media, we have designed, implemented and evaluated /eMoto/, a mobile service for sending affective messages to others. With eMoto, we explicitly aim to address both cognitive and physical experiences of human emotions. Through combining affective gestures for input with affective expressions that make use of colors, shapes and animations for the background of messages, the interaction "pulls" the user into an /affective loop/. In this thesis we define what we mean by affective loop and present a user-centered design approach expressed through four design principles inspired by previous work within Human Computer Interaction (HCI) but adjusted to our purposes; /embodiment/ (Dourish 2001) as a means to address how people communicate emotions in real life, /flow/ (Csikszentmihalyi 1990) to reach a state of involvement that goes further than the current context, /ambiguity/ of the designed expressions (Gaver et al. 2003) to allow for open-ended interpretation by the end-users instead of simplistic, one-emotion one-expression pairs and /natural but designed expressions/ to address people's natural couplings between cognitively and physically experienced emotions. We also present results from an end-user study of eMoto that indicates that subjects got both physically and emotionally involved in the interaction and that the designed "openness" and ambiguity of the expressions, was appreciated and understood by our subjects. Through the user study, we identified four potential design problems that have to be tackled in order to achieve an affective loop effect; the extent to which users' /feel in control/ of the interaction, /harmony and coherence/ between cognitive and physical expressions/,/ /timing/ of expressions and feedback in a communicational setting, and effects of users' /personality/ on their emotional expressions and experiences of the interaction

THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF PREGNANT TWIN STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the lived experiences of pregnant twin students in a certain public secondary school in Davao City, Philippines. Using purposive sampling technique, the study focused on the two informants who are identical twins and both in 10th Grade. In-depth interview, observations, and field notes were utilized in analysis of data. Narratives were carefully transcribed, translated, and underwent thematic analysis to generate essential themes. Results disclosed that pregnant twin students experienced the use of contraceptives, physical and emotional distress, anxiety about the future, shame and humiliation, changes and prohibitions, the use of contraceptives, love and support of significant others. Also, pregnant students tried to cope with the situation by means of apathy, tenacity and turning to support systems. Along with the realizations of pregnant twins, the study underscored that regrets and remorse are always in the end, early pregnancy is a momentary setback, teenage girls should know better about life, love and sex, and that love and acceptance prevail in the end. The study encouraged future researchers to conduct teenage pregnancy among twin students in secondary schools where the participants may be escalated into bigger number to generate substantive patterns, similarities, and differences.  &nbsp

When Memories Make a Difference: Multimodal Literacy Narratives for Preservice ELA Methods Students

This article examines multimodal literacy narrative projects designed by students in a methods of teaching course for secondary preservice English Language Arts teachers. For the multimodal project, preservice teachers infused written, audio, and visual text using a variety of creative mediums. Through combined theoretical frames, the researcher explores semiotics and preservice teachers’ use of multiliteracies as they shift their conceptions of what it means to compose. Finally, this article explores how the act of reflection through the literacy narrative influences preservice teachers’ notions of teaching composition through a variety of mediums

Health + Equality + School Engagement: Scenarios USA Reinvents Sex Education

This issue of Quality/Calidad/Qualité highlights the experience of Scenarios USA,3 an innovative nonprofit program that has integrated a gender and rights perspective -- and a critical thinking approach -- into curricula, while fostering new pedagogies and greater awareness among teachers. Scenarios USA approaches sexual health not as a stand-alone issue but as intertwined with young people's overall lives and agency. As such, the organization's "sex ed" work is part of a broader strategy of fostering self-expression, leadership, and advocacy among youth, especially among those living in marginalized communities.Instead of teaching adolescents about contraceptive methods, Scenarios has them thinking and writing about gender norms, power dynamics, and intimate relationships in their own lives

A Relational Group Intervention for Teen Pregnancy

This dissertation project involved the program development and evaluation of a group intervention designed for pregnant and mothering teens. Current services for teenage mothers have significant problems with utilization. This is especially true for teen mothers living in rural regions. Research on service utilization demonstrates that many programs for teen mothers lack integrated understanding of this population’s needs as adolescents, and their needs as new mothers. The present group intervention, Mothering: A Beginners’ Group (MBG), integrates conceptual frameworks including empowerment, psychoeducation, and relational therapy in an effort to address the complex needs of teen mothers. A group space was designed to allow participants to examine their current relationships, and to form new relationships with fellow mothering teens. An action research framework was utilized to enlist the help of group participants in the evaluation of MBG. It was believed that participation would provide teens with additional social support and help them develop coping skills to meet the demands of their lives. Seven teenagers living rural New England participated in this group. Evaluation of MBG was completed through a mixed-methods design. Descriptive data was obtained on the demographics of the group. Additionally, quantitative data was obtained through completion of a self-efficacy measure before and after the intervention. These measures were correlated with participants’ level of group attendance. A significant positive correlation (r = .86, p \u3c .058) was found between increased group attendance and increased self-efficacy. Finally, qualitative analysis of postintervention questionnaires and researcher process notes indicated pertinent themes of social isolation, relational stress, and the stresses of transitioning into motherhood. Findings suggest that MBG provides an increased sense of social support to pregnant and mothering teenagers. Implications of these results bring attention to the complexity of the competing developmental goals of adolescence and motherhood; support the use of relational group interventions with populations of pregnant and parenting teenagers; and indicate the need for integration of the lived experience of teenage mothers into the design of programs which serve this population

Understanding Teen Pregnancy through the Younger Sister\u27s Voice: A Focused Ethnography

Each year in the United States between 800,000 and 900,000 adolescents, aged 19 or younger, become pregnant. Over one-half of these pregnancies end in a live birth. Several studies have shown that the younger sisters of adolescent mothers have teenage childbearing rates two to six times higher than childbearing rates of women in the general population. The purpose of this focused ethnography was to gain a better understanding of the influences of a pregnant and parenting adolescent on her younger sister. Purposeful sampling was used to recruit younger sisters of parenting teens. Fifteen (15) African American females, ranging in age from 12 to 17 years old, participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 14. The researcher identified and selected informants through community agencies in which the informants’ older sisters participated in services for teen mothers. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, field observation notes, a fieldwork journal, and a demographic information sheet. Interviews were conducted in the informant’s home. Data were analyzed using Spradley’s Development Research Sequence of a domain analysis, taxonomic analysis, componential analysis, and cultural themes (Spradley, 1979). Seven cultural themes emerged from the data: (a) Mixed Emotions, (b) Centering on Mother/Baby, (c) Childcare Engagement, (d) Sharing of Experience as Warnings, (e) Recognition of Hardship, (f) Change in Family Relationships, and (g) Intentions, Hopes, and Dreams. Findings from this study indicated that the younger sisters of parenting adolescents are greatly impacted by their older teen sister’s pregnancy and parenting. Knowledge from this study may be used to shape future interventions designed and tailored for younger sisters to discontinue the cycle of teenage childbearing in families. Nurses involved in providing care for pregnant and parenting teens need to identify younger sisters, be aware that they are at particular risk for early sexual activity and parenting, and encourage involvement of the entire family in prevention efforts