Towards a Holistic Approach to Designing Theory-based Mobile Health Interventions

Increasing evidence has shown that theory-based health behavior change interventions are more effective than non-theory-based ones. However, only a few segments of relevant studies were theory-based, especially the studies conducted by non-psychology researchers. On the other hand, many mobile health interventions, even those based on the behavioral theories, may still fail in the absence of a user-centered design process. The gap between behavioral theories and user-centered design increases the difficulty of designing and implementing mobile health interventions. To bridge this gap, we propose a holistic approach to designing theory-based mobile health interventions built on the existing theories and frameworks of three categories: (1) behavioral theories (e.g., the Social Cognitive Theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior, and the Health Action Process Approach), (2) the technological models and frameworks (e.g., the Behavior Change Techniques, the Persuasive System Design and Behavior Change Support System, and the Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions), and (3) the user-centered systematic approaches (e.g., the CeHRes Roadmap, the Wendel's Approach, and the IDEAS Model). This holistic approach provides researchers a lens to see the whole picture for developing mobile health interventions

M-health review: joining up healthcare in a wireless world

In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to deliver health and social care. This trend is bound to continue as providers (whether public or private) strive to deliver better care to more people under conditions of severe budgetary constraint

Designing and evaluating a contextual mobile learning application to support situated learning

This research emerged from seeking to identify ways of getting Human-Computer Interaction Design students into real world environments, similar to those in which they will eventually be designing, thus maximising their ability to identify opportunities for innovation. In helping students learn how to become proficient and innovative designers and developers, it is crucial that their ‘out of the classroom’ experience of the environments in which their designs will be used, augments and extends in-class learning. The aim of this research is to investigate firstly, a blended learning model for students in higher education using mobile technology for situated learning and, secondly, the process of designing a mobile learning app within this blended learning model. This app was designed, by the author, to support students in a design task and to develop their independent learning and critical thinking skills, as part of their Human-Computer Interaction coursework. The first stage in designing the system was to conduct a comprehensive contextual inquiry to understand specific student and staff needs in the envisaged scenario. In addition, this research explores the challenges in implementing and deploying such an app in the learning context. A number of evaluations were conducted to assess the design, usability and effectiveness of the app, which we have called sLearn. The results show an improvement in scores and quality of assessed work completed with the support of the sLearn app and a positive response from students regarding its usability and pedagogic utility. The promising results show that the app has helped students in developing critical thinking and independent learning skills. The research also considers the challenges of conducting an ecologically valid study of such interventions in a higher education setting. There were issues discovered in regards to the context of use such as usability of interface elements and feeling self-conscious in using the app in a public place. The model was tested with two other student cohorts: User Experience and Engineering students, to further investigate best practice in deploying mobile learning in higher education and examine the suitability of this learning model for different disciplines. These trials suggest that the model is indeed suitable and, the engineering study in particular has demonstrated that it has the potential to support the learning in-situ of students from non-computing disciplines

Wearables at work:preferences from an employee’s perspective

This exploratory study aims to obtain a first impression of the wishes and needs of employees on the use of wearables at work for health promotion. 76 employ-ees with a mean age of 40 years old (SD ±11.7) filled in a survey after trying out a wearable. Most employees see the potential of using wearable devices for workplace health promotion. However, according to employees, some negative aspects should be overcome before wearables can effectively contribute to health promotion. The most mentioned negative aspects were poor visualization and un-pleasantness of wearing. Specifically for the workplace, employees were con-cerned about the privacy of data collection

Location-based and contextual mobile learning. A STELLAR Small-Scale Study

This study starts from several inputs that the partners have collected from previous and current running research projects and a workshop organised at the STELLAR Alpine Rendevous 2010. In the study, several steps have been taken, firstly a literature review and analysis of existing systems; secondly, mobile learning experts have been involved in a concept mapping study to identify the main challenges that can be solved via mobile learning; and thirdly, an identification of educational patterns based on these examples has been done. Out of this study the partners aim to develop an educational framework for contextual learning as a unifying approach in the field. Therefore one of our central research questions is: how can we investigate, theorise, model and support contextual learning