Perceived Well-being Effects During the Implementation of a Self-tracking Technology

In recent years, both individuals and the healthcare sector have become more interested to measure and improve health and well-being by using different self-tracking technologies. However, the number of studies concerning the experiences that people have with these technologies is still rather limited. This study investigates the expectations and perceived short-term effects of using self-tracking technologies on users’ well-being. The focus is on the first weeks of usage i.e., the implementation phase. The study is qualitative in nature and based on thematic analysis of ten semi-structured interviews. The results reveal that the perceived well-being effects of using a self-tracking technology are relatively minor during the implementation phase and in line with the expectations. The increase in well-being is expected to occur in a longer time scale. Perceived psychological well-being is found to be affected the most during the implementation phase. The results also reveal interesting findings regarding the use of self-tracking technologies. The results are discussed and several important implications are drawn

Health and well-being implications surrounding the use of wearable GPS devices in professional rugby league: A Foucauldian disciplinary analysis of the normalised use of a common surveillance aid

Wearable GPS tracking devices have become commonplace coaching aids across professional field sports to enhance sports performances and reduce injury rates, despite the implications of the technology being poorly understood. This study looked at how GPS devices are used and the impact constant surveillance has upon the physical, psychological, and emotional health of rugby football workers. The disciplinary analysis of Michel Foucault was used to investigate how British Super League teams use wearable GPS technology, to investigate the dominant 'truth' that promotes surveillance technologies as 'universally beneficial' to athlete sports performance, health and well-being. Data was drawn from semi-structured interviews with three performance analysts/strength and conditioning coaches at three different Super League clubs across the North of England. Participants confessed data generated from wearable GPS is often totally ignored, despite being specifically produced to protect athlete health and wellbeing. When used, GPS data can become a 'disciplinary tool' to normalise and coerce players to comply with potentially unhealthy physical and psychological demands of a professional playing career. Importantly, regardless of how GPS data was used, the employment of wearable GPS devices was constantly and rigorously implemented. The constant surveillance experience by working players, when mismanaged or adopted as a coercive disciplinary tool, magnifies the uncertainty and fear of failure central to the predominant challenges that arise during a working football career. This leads to the acceptance of problematic norms damaging to physical, psychological, and emotional health. If GPS or other surveillance based performance analysis technologies are to be used in sport, coaches need to regulate or re-think their day-to-day use to avoid creating new harms to athlete health and well-being

Identity and affect in design cognition

Much Design Research effort has been afforded to investigating how designers think and what they do; often in the form of protocol analysis. These investigations have mainly focused on how designers influence material culture however, little attention has been paid to another line of enquiry; that is how the act of designing affects the individual undertaking the work and the role of social psychological phenomena e.g. attitudes, evaluations, emotions, impressions, motivations and social behaviour - on design activity. This interplay of affect between design activity and a designer’s social psychological behaviour is a complex two way process that warrants further investigation. Our research agenda focuses on the individual undertaking design activity and asks how does designing affect the designer and their behaviour? In this paper two issues are addressed: 1. The immediate effects of design activity on the designer 2. The role of self-concept in design cognition These two issues are investigated through a series of experiments carried out under semi-controlled conditions using several forms of observation and novel self-concept inventories. This paper draws attention to the need to consider self-concept and affect in design cognition and introduces the idea of design identity, which is uniquely different to the concept of design experience often quoted in the literature. This is an area of the ongoing research agenda within the Department of Design and Technology, Loughborough University, UK. Keywords: Design Activity; Design Behaviour; Psychology of Design; Self-Concept; Immediate Effects</p

Understanding the evaluation of access and participation outreach interventions for under 16 year olds

The project team was asked to address the following six research questions and these were used to guide the project: 1. What are the intended outcomes for current outreach interventions directed at under 16 year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds where the long-term aim is to widen access to higher education (HE)? 2. What types of outreach intervention activity or activities are institutions using in relation to intended outcomes? 3. What evaluation tools, methods and metrics are being used to measure the intended outcomes? 4. What are the perceived and actual challenges and barriers for different stakeholders to effective evaluation of long-term outreach? 5. What do different stakeholders consider most effective evaluation practice and why? 6. How valid and suitable are the evaluation tools, methods and metrics (identified through the research) that are commonly used? The project was constructed around six interlinked work packages: 1. A quantitative analysis of what higher education providers (HEPs) say about their pre-16 outreach activities (and their evaluation) in their 2017-18 access agreements (as the most recent available). 2. An online survey of HEPs to gather information about the pre-16 outreach activities delivered during the 2016-17 academic year and their evaluation, as well as the structure of their evaluation resources and challenges faced. 3. Case studies of four HEPs identified as demonstrating elements of good practice through their access agreements and the online survey, derived from telephone interviews with key staff and documentary analysis. 4. Telephone interviews with 11 third sector organisations (TSOs) to explore their practices and the evaluation of their activities, providing a counterpoint to the data collected from higher education institutions (HEIs). 5. A synthesis of the four preceding work packages to explore elements of good practice, determine a basis for assessing the quality of evaluations and highlight challenges for the sector and OFFA. 6. An invited participatory workshop for evaluators from HEPs and TSOs identified as demonstrating elements of good practice through the online survey and telephone interviews, to act as a sounding board for the emerging conclusions and recommendations.Office for Students (OfS

Designing wheelchair-based movement games

People using wheelchairs have access to fewer sports and other physically stimulating leisure activities than nondisabled persons, and often lead sedentary lifestyles that negatively influence their health. While motion- based video games have demonstrated great potential of encouraging physical activity among nondisabled players, the accessibility of motion-based games is limited for persons with mobility disabilities, thus also limiting access to the potential health benefits of playing these games. In our work, we address this issue through the design of wheelchair-accessible motion-based game controls. We present KINECTWheels, a toolkit designed to integrate wheelchair movements into motion-based games. Building on the toolkit, we developed Cupcake Heaven, a wheelchair-based video game designed for older adults using wheelchairs, and we created Wheelchair Revolution, a motion-based dance game that is accessible to both persons using wheelchairs and nondisabled players. Evaluation results show that KINECTWheels can be applied to make motion-based games wheelchair-accessible, and that wheelchair-based games engage broad audiences in physically stimulating play. Through the application of the wheelchair as an enabling technology in games, our work has the potential of encouraging players of all ages to develop a positive relationship with their wheelchair

The Reality of Measuring Human Service Programs: Results of a Survey

In the summer of 2013, Idealware created and distributed a survey to learn how human service organizations from their own mailing list are actually using technology to measure and evaluate the outcomes of their programs. The suvey looked at a general overview of outcomes measurement and program evaluation topics, from how frequently they look at data and how much time they spend doing so to what types of metrics the organizations were tracking. To further understand the realities of measuring program effectiveness, Idealware conducted a site visit and interview of three human service organizations in Portland, Maine. The results clearly show that the respondents are struggling to measure their programs

INQUIRE: a case study in evaluating the potential of online MCQ tests in a discursive subject

There has been a wealth of investigation into the use of online multiple-choice questions as a means of summative assessment, however the research into the use of formative MCQs by the same mode of delivery still remains patchy. Similarly, research and implementation has been largely concentrated within the Sciences and Medicine rather than the more discursive subjects within the Humanities and Social Sciences. The INQUIRE (Interactive Questions Reinforcing Education) Evaluation Project was jointly conducted by two groups at the University of Oxford-the Said Business School and the Academic Computing Development Team to evaluate the use of online MCQs as a mechanism to reinforce and extend student learning. This initial study used a small set of highly focused MCQ tests that were designed to complement an introductory series of first-year undergraduate management lectures. MCQ is a simple and well-established technology, and hence the emphasis was very much on situating the tests within the student experience. The paper will cover how the online MCQs are intended to fit into the Oxford Undergraduate study agenda, and how a simple evaluation was executed and planned to investigate their usage and impact. The chosen method of evaluation was to combine focus groups with automated online methods of tracking, and the paper discusses the findings of both of these