Designing solutions for complex behaviour change processes can be greatly aided by integrating insights from the behavioural sciences into design practice. However, this integration is hampered by the relative inaccessibility of behavioral scientific knowledge. Working in a multidisciplinary of design researchers and behavioural scientists may bridge the gap between the two fields. This paper shares our experiences in working as such a multidisciplinary group on a large project, amongst others consisting of the design of interventions for workplace safety. Our cooperation was fruitful, both for design researchers – being able to better structure the messiness of the design process –, behavioural scientists – gaining in ecological validity of their methods –, and commissioners – increased trust in potential outcomes of the design process. However, difficulties preventing synergy also transpired.
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OBJECTIVE: To investigate the level of agreement of the behavioural mapping method with an accelerometer to measure physical activity of hospitalized patients. DESIGN: A prospective single-centre observational study. SETTING: A university medical centre in the Netherlands. SUBJECTS: Patients admitted to the hospital. MAIN MEASURES: Physical activity of participants was measured for one day from 9 AM to 4 PM with the behavioural mapping method and an accelerometer simultaneously. The level of agreement between the percentages spent lying, sitting and moving from both measures was evaluated using the Bland-Altman method and by calculating Intraclass Correlation Coefficients. RESULTS: In total, 30 patients were included. Mean (±SD) age was 63.0 (16.8) years and the majority of patients were men (n = 18). The mean percentage of time (SD) spent lying was 47.2 (23.3) and 49.7 (29.8); sitting 42.6 (20.5) and 40.0 (26.2); and active 10.2 (6.1) and 10.3 (8.3) according to the accelerometer and observations, respectively. The Intraclass Correlation Coefficient and mean difference (SD) between the two measures were 0.852 and -2.56 (19.33) for lying; 0.836 and 2.60 (17.72) for sitting; and 0.782 and -0.065 (6.23) for moving. The mean difference between the two measures is small (⩽2.6%) for all three physical activity levels. On patient level, the variation between both measures is large with differences above and below the mean of ⩾20% being common. CONCLUSION: The overall level of agreement between the behavioural mapping method and an accelerometer to identify the physical activity levels 'lying', 'sitting' and 'moving' of hospitalized patients is reasonable.
Forensic and behavioural science are often seen as two different disciplines. However, there is a growing realization that the two disciplines should be more strongly integrated. Incorporating psychological theories on human behaviour in forensic science could help solving investigative problems, especially at the crime scene. At the crime scene it is not just about applying scientific methods to analyse traces; these traces must first be perceived and categorized as relevant. At the crime scene, the behavioural perspective of an investigative psychologist could play an important role. In this study, we examine to what extent (1) investigative psychologists detect deviant behavioural cues compared to forensic examiners when investigating a crime scene, (2) forensic examiners can find the relevant traces that can be associated with this behaviour and (3) the availability of a psychological report highlighting these behavioural cues helps forensic examiners in finding more relevant traces. To this end, a total of 14 investigative psychologists and 40 forensic examiners investigated a virtual 3D mock crime scene. The results of this study show that investigative psychologists see significantly more deviant behavioural cues than forensic examiners, and that forensic examiners who receive a psychological report on these cues recognize and collect significantly more traces that can be linked to deviant behaviour and have a high evidential value than examiners who did not receive this information. However, the study also demonstrates that behavioural information is likely to be ignored when it contradicts existing beliefs.
