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!

Interpersonal Awareness – another possible angle

In an effort to find a focus that will get the most out of the rich qualitative data I will be collecting, I decided to revise some of my earlier thoughts. As part of my exploration of self-efficacy, I came across the idea of interpersonal awareness, a term proposed by Neustaedter et al (2006).

Drawing on studies of context awareness and CSCW, Neustaedter et al. develop a model for interpersonal awareness through a qualitative analysis of the relationships of a number of participants. Relationships were put into three categories. These are placed on a spectrum in order of decreasing need for awareness and decreasing need for detail: home inhabitants, intimate socials and extended socials. The analysis also explored the types of information needed and the reasons for needing awareness. Fundamental reasons for needing awareness were distilled to co-ordination, promoting connectedness and desire to share personal knowledge. The three fundamental types of awareness information were of location, activity and status.

This study is relevant to the current problem situation as it deals with context awareness in a social context. Many studies in IS research have focussed on awareness needs in a work context. My first thoughts on possible ways to expand this model are through investigating:

• how online relationships with no face to face component fit into the model
• how support relationships fit into this model
• people’s need to express their status or convey information. Neustaedter et al. focus on the awareness of others that people require. Apart from cases involving co-ordination, they do not mention people’s own need for others to be aware of their location or status.
• how aware people are of others in an online support community, and whether increasing awareness is of any benefit

I was also thinking of looking at the relationship between interpersonal awareness and perceived social support through obtaining a subjective account of their perceived supportedness before and after the trial.

Anyway, these are thoughts that require a bit more rumination over the weekend, I think.

References

Neustaedter, C., Elliot, K., & Greenberg, S. (2006). Interpersonal awareness in the domestic realm . Proceedings of OZCHI 2006, 15-22 .

Nailing a research question…

… is really not that easy.

I felt a bit disillusioned after my meeting with my supervisors a few days ago. The realisation about research that was forming when I wrote my last post still hadn’t really kicked in, so I ended up diverging a jumbled mess of words and desires. I also really struggled to grasp exactly what my supervisor was on about at times, as he put forward ideas that I thought were irrelevant or by changing a couple of words in one of my sentences rendered it seemingly incomprehensible or changed the domain entirely. I started to feel like I needed 20 years of research up my belt in order to get anywhere. On later reflection, I realised that this is what research is all about. There are many kinds of stories that can be told about any situation, problem or relationship. You just have to follow your intuition, logic, interests and (of course) the literature until things start to settle down. And they finally have:

What influence does micro-blogging have over perceived social support?

This is the question I settled on yesterday, and already it has started to change. Firstly, a justification for watering down my desire to design something. In order to evaluate a user interface within the scope of an honours degree, it would have to be quite simple and targeted on a specific kind of interaction. The design ideas I have in my head for a twitter/facebook mashup to help people quit smoking are waaaay too complicated for me to tackle in the time I have. So instead I decided to focus on the assumption that was the underlying motivation for making the choice to use twitter: that micro-blogging will help people feel more supported. By pairing up or forming small groups, quitting smokers will be able to share their thoughts about their quit attempt, express frustration and joy and maintain an awareness of how others are in the group, an awareness which may encourage direct support in the form of an instant message or SMS.

As I write this, however, I’m beginning to wonder if social support is the right construct to be measuring. While trying to find an established questionnaire to measure it, I noticed that studies often measure a variety of constructs, including:

• Perceived social support
• Self-esteem
• Hopefulness
• Self-efficacy

One may expect that levels of self-esteem, hopefulness and self-efficacy would increase as perceived social support increases, although they may be affected by other things as well. Micro-blogging has two major affordances for wellbeing: reflexiveness and awareness. Users can reflect on their trajectory (as well as that of others), as well as enabling others to have an awareness of their thoughts, feelings and actions. This awareness may lead to an increase in the amount of support given …. but it may not.

Perhaps reflexiveness is the major benefit of micro-blogging (at least as it exists at the moment), so maybe I should just be measuring constructs more indicative of general well-being (eg self-esteem, hopefulness). Alternatively, if I want to focus on behavioural change, I could look at self-efficacy. Again, self-esteem and hopefulness may help in the interpretation of the data.

In summary, I have to choose whether I’m focusing on social support, which may have a more general application, or self-efficacy, which will the contribution to aid in the field of behavioural change. In either case measures of self-esteem and hopefulness will also be useful indicators. (Aside: increases in perceived social support would be reflected in these two variables, so the effect of social support would not be abandoned entirely if we focus on self-efficacy at the expense of perceived social support).

Since the affordances of micro-blogging in its current form do not have interaction as a focus, perhaps self-efficacy is in fact the construct I should be looking at. Reflexiveness is, after all, important in behavioural change and I’m not sure how it is relevant for other forms of social support. Maybe it’s only relevant when there is some kind of goal-driven journey. (Aside: Preece refers to tasks and goals in her analysis of the online knee reconstruction support network).
Yes, I know things got a bit hairy back there. But I think I’ve sorted it all out now (for the moment…). Looks like I’ll probably be changing my research question to:

What influence does micro-blogging have over self-efficacy in smoking cessation?

Next up: defining micro blogging. At the moment it’s just floating in the air – I really need to ground it in the literature.