Loss of focus

Dealing with the possible change in methodology seems to have brought with it some doubt as to the focus of the research. Last week, in an attempt to get a sense of what my contribution might be, I explored the possibilities of integrating the model of the Temporal Aspects of Usability (TAU), the Dynamic Model of Relapse (DMR) and possibly even the Transtheoretical Model of Behaviour Change (TTM). Looking at this in writing now drives home just how ambitious (and unwise) a pursuit this is. Needless to say, it proved problematic. Fabre’s TAU model provides four high-level dimensions to be considered when designing for a particular action: location, duration, frequency and contingency. The DMR describes a complex system and, while temporal considerations are important in the model, it is not a ‘temporal’ model of relapse prevention. A couple of simplified integrated models I attempted seemed so obvious as to almost be common sense, making me question value of their contribution.

Going through this process also made me wonder about the role of the data I was intending to collect. How would the data support the assumptions made in the models? I found myself at one of those points where it seems like you’re doing research in reverse. So, back to square one, and time to re-ask some fundamental questions – What is the research question? Am I trying to modify a model, integrate some models or just use some models to get at some information? The first of these questions really should have been more present in my mind, but seems to have been ignored. The second, about models, can only really be answered once I have my data. There’s only so much you can guess about how a model can be changed when you don’t have any data.

I’ve resolved, at least for the moment, to press on with the following research question, which I have a feeling is at a good level of abstraction and will let me get the most advantage out of the contextual data I hope to collect (more on my new methodology later).

What are the influences on the ability of quitting smokers to access online social support at times of need?

In answering this, I will explore the activity of accessing support. I will use the TAU dimensions to explore this activity, and will use aspects of the DMR to explore contextual issues and temporal issues related to smoking.

I’m going to define ‘access’ as the sending or receiving of social support ‘content’. A ‘time of need’ may be defined either by the individual (eg. a craving or experience of withdrawal symptoms, intrapersonal negative affect), their context (eg. a high risk situation, conflict with others) or by research into appropriate times for intervention. In including the last of these, I hope to be able to cover interruption or persistence as a part of the investigation. Research has hinted that this is ‘needed’, but it is not a need that quitting smokers would necessarily express (note the inability to interrupt in online social support). Online social support will be defined as support in online communities from other quitters as well as micro-blog users who publish their quit experiences to their friends online. Some interesting comparisons could be brought up between conventional online communities and new ‘lighter’ social networking in micro-blogs, where communication is not only with other quitters but with a regular extended social network. “Online” may include mobile access to online technologies, eg twitter.

If I were to pre-empt some of the findings, I would be thinking about the interplay of rhythms and interruptions. The rhythms of the physiological effects of quitting, the rhythms of device use, rhythms of social interaction and other life rhythms may all have an effect. Interruptions would feature in a couple of ways. Experiencing a craving in a high risk situation could be seen as an interruption to the activity the individual wishes to be engaged in. We could also think of ‘remedial’ interruptions such as reminder emails.

Surely this needs another iteration, but I’m going to sit with it for at least 24 hours. I need some focus at least for the next little while. And I would really, really like to be able to keep most of my literature review! A possible problem: I think I (and other researchers) already implicitly know what many of the influences are. Also, the rhythms of internet use are perhaps not as interesting and “rich” (ie tied to interesting contexts) as the rhythms of mobile use. Then again, perhaps nobody has explicitly pointed out these inadequacies of online social support. Maybe I need to push for the distinction between tonic and phasic social support, and underline that an online community supports the tonic but is inadequate at supporting the phasic. This leaves a window to talk about mobile technology in the discussion, also highlighting the capacities of the different media to convey different kinds of social support. Another idea is to look at access to support in general at times of need. This could take in a variety of technologies … but I suppose it would better to just focus on one.

Re-thinking methodology

Well, failing some kind of miracle, it looks like I won’t have time to run the trial I was planning to. Hours of work building the website for the project and planning the logistics gone to waste. I knew there was a chance it would all be in vain, but I had to be prepared. Enough negative talk – how can I make this work? What data to I have at my disposal? How would that data help me to answer the question?

Possible sources of data

Interviews with online support community members: In order to get at ‘the influences on their ability to access online social support’, I would use the TAU and DMR concepts to probe their use of the community. This should lead to some discussion on the benefits of mobile technologies From members that have already contacted me, I should hopefully be able to tee up four or five online chat interviews. I could ask the administrators of the community if I could message some other members about the interview directly. Hopefully, I would have a few more bites this time. It would be good to get a list of members that had quit in the previous month or fortnight.

Interviews with quitext users: Quitext is a new service launched by an Australian company that sends SMS messages of advice for quitting smokers on a schedule defined by the individual. They’re quite a new service, though, and I’m not sure how many subscribers they have. I don’t think it’s that likely that this option will come through.

Channel on Jaiku of quitting smokers: These guys formed the group I was hoping to in my study. I could join the group and ask them to post more often, also ask if they’re posting from mobile or web. Could then do email pre-interview and web-chat post interview. Could be a bit risky. This is the last chance to get the micro-blogging trial idea off the ground. Otherwise, just interviewing some/all of them would be interesting. They seem to have stopped posting about their quit so much recently, but they have been posting to each other on other topics. I don’t know how many of these people knew each other beforehand. There is surely something interesting in here, I’m just not sure how relevant the TAU is to this any more. Need a rethink on the question if I go down this path.

Twitter feeds of people quitting: Across both micro-blogging platforms, there is one user on Twitter that posted the most about her quit attempt. About 20 times over the course of three weeks. She was already a regular twitterer, and she slotted her quit-related posts in between all her regular posts. She kind of ‘hijacked’ the communication channel in her quit attempt. The feeds themselves would be interesting to look at and the intervening posts would give some idea of the context. Interviewing her would be great, and her micro-blog would serve as a perfect aid to her memory, to get her back into the moments when she was posting and how she was thinking/feeling. If I could land an interview, then there could be a valuable methodological contribution regarding the use of micro-blog feeds to aid in interview recall.

I better stop crapping on now. I’ve read, re-read and re-written this post about 20 times. I’m feeling that focusing on the temporality of Quitnet use is a bit dull. I would ideally like to look at the micro-blogging quitters, but I need to define a research question and a contribution angle. I don’t know if TAU is going to cut it any more if I make so many changes to the methodology.

Hmmmmmm

Meeting Summary

A productive, focusing meeting today. Most of the discussion focused on data analysis, which led to speculation about the product of the research. The dance between existing research, contribution and practical issues continues.

Methodology

We discussed in detail my proposal for analysis of the data. Yesterday I went through the four dimensions of the TAU as proposed by Fabre, and thought about how I would get at them through the data. I was assuming that they would be the ‘lense’ and that the relationship between it and the theories of behaviour change/relapse (the Transtheoretical Model and the Dynamic Model of Relapse) would come out in the discussion. Steve suggested that I need to get at the constructs in those theories more clearly in my methodology, rather than just focusing on the TAU dimensions. This led to a discussion on what would actually be produced in the discussion section of the thesis – what will the contribution be? I’ve given up assuming that this question will have an answer before it’s handed in.

My intention to do some simple statistical analysis was questioned. We resolved that we would have to wait and see what data I get to see whether it can be made to play any part in the story.

Contribution

Our discussion today formalised what had been floating around in the back of my head. I’m going to look to synthesise the TAU framework with the temporal aspects of the models of addiction and relapse. The product would then be:

An model for the temporal aspects of usability in technology to support smoking cessation.

Obviously a shorter, snappier title needs to be formulated, but this is essentially what I’m trying to do. The solidification of this goal means that I need to make sure I can get at the temporal aspects of all of these in the data. Steve said he wanted to see a more definite indication as to how I will get at all of the constructs through the data. I think my mind map from yesterday demonstrates most of that, though I need to do some work on pulling out the constructs from the TTM and the DMR (maybe even just the DMR… we’ll see).

Contingency

Ethics clearance was finalised last night. I’ve contacted QuitNet and hopefully the message will go out to thousands of QuitNet members in the next couple of days. I need to come up with a contingency plan ASAP – what will I do if I don’t get any interest, or it takes participants too long to organise themselves into groups?

Timeline

I need to get participants going ASAP. I also need to make a call on whether there is enough time to do a one week pilot. If I get some participants by the end of this week, that may be possible, otherwise I really don’t know if I’ll have enough time.

By the end of September:

• All data should be in, with most of it having been analysed
• Draft of the methodology
• Draft findings

For October, this leaves:

• Draft dicsussion
• Finesse literature review
• Hand it in on October 26

Summary

I feel like I’m pretty well on track. I need to finally sort out the issues with the stage of change questionnaire, which have been bugging me for quite a while. I think I need to just put some together and get someone at TCCV to check over it. Also need to finish the mini-site with all the help info for participants in the study. And address all the issues brought up in the meeting. My work is cut out for me – it’s time to get cracking!

Meeting Summary

Firstly, answers to some questions:

Should I set up their twitter accounts for them? 

I should offer that I can do this for them. If I set up an account, I will need to use a new email address to do it. I will need to make sure that the participant enters their own email address at the start of the study – in case they want to be sent email reminders or forget their password. They may also want to change the password.

Should I maintain full access to the accounts?

I was thinking that maybe I should be able to have access to their accounts so that I can see the private messages they have sent to each other. My supervisors suggested that I should keep them private and ask them to disclose as much about their private messages as they are comfortable with. This might be as little as stating how often they sent private messages, or as much as cutting and pasting messages they are comfortable with me seeing.

How can I ‘refine my data collection approach’?

Steve suggested that I try to collect some dummy data and start to figure out how I may approach the analysis. This should hopefully streamline my approach ahead of getting the real data and help me to write up my methodology more clearly.

Deadlines

I now have a fortnight to produce a rough draft of my literature review. For some reason I’ve had it in the back of my head that this will be pretty easy, but I think I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. The literature review needs to be a well crafted story.

Background & Context: Introduce the problem space

Problem: A problem that has been identified as important by the relevant academic communities – could be the temporality aspect for smoking cessation. Provides the scope for the ‘work of others’ literature review.

Work of Others: What others in the research community have done to address the problem

Gap: Shortcomings of the work of others in addressing the problem. Note that there is some interplay between the gap and the problem. Some things may be interchangeable between the two depending on the story to be told

Research Question: A re-articulation of the gap as a question