This study provides an illustration of a research design complementary to randomized controlled trial to evaluate program effects, namely, participatory peer research (PPR). The PPR described in current study was carried out in a small sample (N = 10) of young adults with mild intellectual disabilities (MID) and severe behavioral problems. During the PPR intervention, control and feedback to individuals is restored by training them to become participant-researchers, who collaborate in a small group of people with MID. Their research is aimed at the problems the young adults perceive and/or specific subjects of their interest. The study was designed as a multiple case study with an experimental and comparison group. Questionnaires and a semistructured interview were administered before and after the PPR project. Results of Reliable Change Index (RCI) analyses showed a decrease in self-serving cognitive distortions in the PPR group, but not in the comparison group. These results indicate that PPR helps to compensate for a lack of adequate feedback and control, and in turn may decrease distorted thinking and thereby possibly later challenging behavior.
Whereas blended learning can deliver several benefits to students in highereducation, their achievement depends on how exactly it is designed. A participatorydesign is recommendable to try to meet the needs of all stakeholders. ThePersuasive System Design-model can be used to motivate students during theonline part of the course. In the design there has to be an optimal blend betweenthe different parts of the course. A participatory design is used to design ablended learning course of autobiographical reflection for second year socialwork students. The blended course was developed in six meetings with aworking group, including all stakeholders (students, teachers, instructional designers,educational experts and professionals). Almost all techniques of the firstthree categories of the PSD-model were used in the design of the blended course.None of the techniques of the fourth category ‘Social Support’ of the PSD-modelwere used, mostly because they touch on the personal process of autobiographicalreflection. It was considered helpful for teachers to have a protocol thatassists them in blending the different parts and this in turn could stimulatestudents to be engaged in the different parts of the blended learning course. Inthis study, we found that the participatory design approach may lead to anengaging blended learning course that encourages the use of persuasive technologywith an optimal focus on content, target group, context and ethical aspectsof the blended course. We suggest adding a new fifth category ‘Blended LearningSupport’.What do you want to do ?New mail
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An emerging body of research indicates that active arts engagement can enhance older adults’ health and experienced well‐being, but scientific evidence is still fragmented. There is a research gap in understanding arts engagement grounded in a multidimensional conceptualization of the value of health and well‐being from older participants’ perspectives. This Dutch nation‐wide study aimed to explore the broader value of arts engagement on older people’s perceived health and well‐being in 18 participatory arts‐based projects (dance, music, singing, theater, visual arts, video, and spoken word) for community‐dwelling older adults and those living in long term care facilities. In this study, we followed a participatory design with narrative‐ and arts‐based inquiry. We gathered micro‐narratives from older people and their (in)formal caregivers (n = 470). The findings demonstrate that arts engagement, according to participants, resulted in (1) positive feelings, (2) personal and artistic growth, and (3) increased meaningful social interactions. This study concludes that art‐based practices promote older people’s experienced well‐being and increase the quality of life of older people. This study emphasizes the intrinsic value of arts engagement and has implications for research and evaluation of arts engagement.
This project addresses the fundamental societal problem that encryption as a technique is available since decades, but has never been widely adopted, mostly because it is too difficult or cumbersome to use for the public at large. PGP illustrates this point well: it is difficult to set-up and use, mainly because of challenges in cryptographic key management. At the same time, the need for encryption has only been growing over the years, and has become an urgent problem with stringent requirements – for instance for electronic communication between doctors and patients – in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and with systematic mass surveillance activities of internationally operating intelligence agencies. The interdisciplinary project "Encryption for all" addresses this fundamental problem via a combination of cryptographic design and user experience design. On the cryptographic side it develops identity-based and attribute-based encryption on top of the attribute-based infrastructure provided by the existing IRMA-identity platform. Identity-based encryption (IBE) is a scientifically well-established technique, which addresses the key management problem in an elegant manner, but IBE has found limited application so far. In this project it will be developed to a practically usable level, exploiting the existing IRMA platform for identification and retrieval of private keys. Attribute-based encryption (ABE) has not reached the same level of maturity yet as IBE, and will be a topic of further research in this project, since it opens up attractive new applications: like a teacher encrypting for her students only, or a company encrypting for all employees with a certain role in the company. On the user experience design side, efforts will be focused on making these encryption techniques really usable (i.e., easy to use, effective, efficient, error resistant) for everyone (e.g., also for people with disabilities or limited digital skills). To do so, an iterative, human-centred and inclusive design approach will be adopted. On a fundamental level, scientific questions will be addressed, such as how to promote the use of security and privacy-enhancing technologies through design, and whether and how usability and accessibility affect the acceptance and use of encryption tools. Here, theories of nudging and boosting and the unified theory of technology acceptance and use (known as UTAUT) will serve as a theoretical basis. On a more applied level, standards like ISO 9241-11 on usability and ISO 9241-220 on the human-centred design process will serve as a guideline. Amongst others, interface designs will be developed and focus groups, participatory design sessions, expert reviews and usability evaluations with potential users of various ages and backgrounds will be conducted, in a user experience and observation laboratory available at HAN University of Applied Sciences. In addition to meeting usability goals, ensuring that the developed encryption techniques also meet national and international accessibility standards will be a particular point of focus. With respect to usability and accessibility, the project will build on the (limited) usability design experiences with the mobile IRMA application.
While several governmental and research efforts are set upon mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), most of them are driven by individual travel behavior and potential usage. Scholars argue that this is a too narrow perspective when evaluating government projects because choices individuals make in a private setting might not accurately reflect their preferences towards public policy. Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) is a novel evaluation framework specifically designed to alleviate this issue by analyzing preferences on the allocation of public budgets. Thus, based on PVE, this project aims at assessing different features of MaaS-services (e.g. enhancing mobility of the elderly and the poor, complementing public transport, etc.) from a social desirability perspective and compare them with investments in alternative social projects. Specifically, it aims at establishing the citizen value of MaaS as compared to social investments in green/recreational areas or transport infrastructure (e.g. bike or bus lanes), and eliciting trade-offs between different features of them. The project includes the selection of different investment projects (and their features) that are politically relevant in Rotterdam. It also includes a qualitative assessment on the way individuals evaluate different social projects and their features and a quantitative assessment based on choice models that allow eliciting trade-offs between different attributes and projects. Finally, policy recommendations are provided based on these results. They allow conceiving investments projects to maximize the societal benefits as well as to construct optimal investment portfolios. This information is to be used as a complement of the evaluation of projects on the basis of individual preferences.
