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

Temporal Aspects of Usability

I know, I know, it seems like the topic has changed every week. But this one is sticking for sure. It’s simply too late to change now.

Basically, I’m going to be exploring the ways that micro-blogging can help improve the timeliness of support for quitting smokers in online communities. I will be guided in my investigation by Fabre et al.’s (2000) theory of the dimensions of the Temporal Aspects of usability: duration, location, frequency and contingency.

I will conduct a trial that will involve the participants using twitter for a fortnight. Participants will be groups of 3 or 4 that have had some interaction with each other within the QuitNet online community. Through observing their feeds, I will be able to see the frequency and context of posts between the participants as the use twitter to assist them in quitting smoking.

References

Fabre, J. (2000). Designing time at the user interface. Behaviour & Information Technology, 19(6), 451-463.

Notes from meeting

Just a summary of the brief meeting I just had with my supervisors.

What kind of study is this?

Last week I had to submit an assignment on my intended research methods for my project. It was a bit of a struggle trying to fit HCI research instruments like technology probes into the strict Information Systems research categories like ‘Field study’, ‘Case study’, ‘Ethnography’ and ‘Experiment’. I suggested to my supervisor that this is possibly an interpretive field study. Instead, he suggested that however I label my study, it should mention that it is qualitative, online and involves polling/probing in the form of an interview. It may be that there is an existing term to describe this kind of research, or I may have to adapt an existing term or come up with my own. He also said that what I call it will depend on the audience.

Justifying the number of participants

In order to justify the number of participants before the analysis of the data, I need to make a pragmatic argument and also refer to examples of similar research. After the research, I need to make an argument that some kind of theoretical saturation had been achieved from the data, that an analysis of more participants would not reveal any more insights.

From appropriation to adoption

After investigating appropriation it was looking like it was too ill-defined a term. There are few theories about technology appropriation. One that looked like it may be useful is only concerned with whether or not a particular technology is appropriated and the reasons behind its appropriation, rejection and ‘disappropriation’ (Just what do the youth of today want? Carroll et al. 2002). Such theories do not probe to the level of providing a rich account. Also, given the short timeframe available to me to collect data (2 weeks), it is unlikely that the full process of appropriation will run its course.

My supervisor then suggested looking at technology adoption theories instead, which are a lot more well-defined and focus on the stage where technology begins to be used. I asked whether the theory would simply be a tool or whether it was intended for my contribution to be testing how adoption models relate in the context of technology support for behavioural change. The answer I got was, effectively ‘both, but possibly only the first one’. I would use the theory as a way of analysing and understanding their behaviour (in addition to my qualitative analysis). Essentially, it is a tool for investigation (the qualitative analysis to follow would complement the perspective given by this tool). I’m still unsure as to whether this is the appropriate tool if I don’t intend for my contribution to be to adoption theory. I need to think some more about this and clear this up.

Data Analysis

We discussed hermeneutics and ‘open and axial coding’. Steve seemed to think that open and axial coding was more appropriate. His take on the hermeneutic approach was that it would take too long as it involves continually collecting data as you progress through the ‘hermeneutic circle’. I don’t recall that constantly pulling in new data was part of hermeneutics, I thought the principle was to become immersed in the data.

Open and axial coding is generally used as part of a ‘grounded theory’ approach, where the theory emerges from the data. Peter suggested I read a book by Strauss & Corben on grounded theory, which is apparently a practical guide to using grounded theory.

Contribution

I think I’ve been somehow assuming that having theory emerge from the qualitative analysis of the data means that you don’t have to define what your contribution is beforehand. I’m starting to see that that’s a little misguided. What would emerge would be a theory describing something in the area of contribution you have defined. Some possible areas for contribution that were talked about today:

• methodology – how to analyse micro-blogging data
• models of technology acceptance (adjusting the TAM)

My assumption about the contribution was that it would be in the form of design guidelines (which has an implicit assumption that they actually use it) for technology for behavioural change and for micro-blogging in particular in this context. I never seem to be able to articulate this in a way that seems sufficient

Unfinalisability

I spoke to a researcher in the department this week, Tuck Leong, about the concept of unfinalisability. It may be relevant if it seems like the micro-blog is being used for varios purposes. Each of these uses may require the user to express themselves in a different way (eg. reflect, request social support). It seems that it is the kind of thing that I could consider as a minor point in the discussion section of my thesis.

What next?

Well, Steve suggested I find some models of technology acceptance to employ. It seems to be a constant struggle to see how his suggestions fit into my expectations for this thesis. Whenever I have an approach that I’m entirely comfortable with, the question that invariably comes back to haunt me is ‘what is the contribution’. If I’m going to come up with a research approach I need to be able to answer this question clearly.

Oh, clarity, I barely knew ye …

Currently trying to put the finishing touches on my research proposal. Keep losing the ability to tell what is important. I’ve read so much and feel that I need a few days for everything to digest in my subconscious. The research proposal as it stands feels a bit thrown together. There are some gaping holes and things just aren’t hanging together as nicely as I’d like them to. I’m not sure whether to look into appropriation literature, or just to give an account of the appropriation in the form of a summary and analysis of user behaviour. I suppose I should at least find out the best way to do this. The big problems I’m coming up against here is that I’m dealing with a lot of really new things that have hardly been covered in the literature. Technologies for behavioural change, pervasive technologies, API based web services (technologies that are in a sense designed solely for appropriation, there is little assumption about how they should be used). All of this is pretty new, so I’m finding it a bit hard to ground myself in the literature. Obviously, there is nothing at all on micro-blogging, so I need to look at what I can – existing technologies for behavioural change, technologies similar to micro-blogging (maybe….).

Hopefully I can get my proposal looking respectable. I think it’s almost there. I realise that at regular intervals through my research I’ve been waiting for times when things become clear. They seem to be few and far between. I put a lot of work into my presentation last week, but most of that work, while good for my background knowledge, is not helping me at all right now. I suppose I just need to get used to this state of incompletion, or lay down some ‘milestones for understanding’ so that I can feel like I’m getting somewhere. First milestone, what is appropriation in this context and how should I deal with it?

hmm…

Questioning research questions…

Things seem to stay stable round here for a maximum of about five minutes.

After settling on the following research question:

What effect does interpersonal awareness have on self-efficacy for behavioural change?

I became increasingly concerned that my view of self-efficacy, the confidence in one’s own ability to refrain from engaging in a particular behaviour, was too simplistic. I believed it was something that could be easily measured and something that needed to be high in order to effect behavioural change. After reading a few papers and meeting with Ron Borland at the Cancer Council Today, I have realised that Self-Efficacy, and indeed many of the internal and external variables in behavioural change, is a strange beast. Depending on the stage of the quit attempt, and depending on the strength of other characteristics, high self-efficacy can have either a positive or negative effect. For example, high self-efficacy combined with insufficient coping skills results in the individual being overconfident and failing to refrain from the behaviour. Also, with a small sample size a measure of this kind would be next to meaningless.

Ron then suggested a different kind of study, where I could attempt to identify what characteristics of micro-blogging address the psychological constructs known to be important in behaviour change. I could get my participants to sign up to twitter and use it for a couple of weeks. I could then observe their posting behaviour and survey/interview them with a view to finding out how the technology was used in relation to those key constructs. For example, did they use it to reflect on their position or to request help. Did they feel it was useful? Do they feel it had an effect on the outcome? While I was taken with this idea for a couple of hours, when talking it over with one of my supervisors I was alerted to the fact that this is merely a technology review. In order to make a contribution to the literature I need to go a step further. Being able to elicit some design guidelines from the data may be enough, but it may not be. I will find out tomorrow when I talk to my main supervisor.

I have since fallen into the idea of focusing on the concepts of temporality, placedness, reflexivity and social supportiveness, which have been identified as possible important characteristics when designing technology to assist in behavioural change. Rather than using the psychological concepts as a lense, I could use these as a lense to probe the users’ experiences and see if they are sufficient, what they mean in the context of micro-blogging (how they manifest) and how micro-blogging services could be better to designed to enhance these characteristics and any others which become evident through the investigation. Again, I’m not sure how significant the contribution is here. The only real difference between this and the previous option is the choice of lense. In this one I am taking for granted some design guidelines and seeing how they hold up and can possibly be elaborated upon or added to. In the previous one I am making no assumptions on design guidelines, instead I am starting from principles of behaviour change and hopefully waiting for design guidelines to emerge. It may be that the existing research into technology for behavioural change has already taken this into account and there is no need for me to dive to that level again. Perhaps it is useful to refine, elaborate and extend the existing guidelines in the literature.

Ok, so, any other big ideas before I sign off? I think some kind of contribution related to design guidelines is a useful one. I’m pretty much following the model of Consolvo et al’s (2006) trial of their mobile phone application to encourage physical activity, only in my case I am not designing the artefact to be tested, I’m just taking advantage of an existing one – just being a connectionist. Whether this contribution is significant is the subject of tomorrow morning’s meeting.

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.

What is research?

I suppose I should have thought about this question before I started undertaking a thesis. I’ve been really struggling the last couple of days and have finally realised why. My main motivation for action is to solve problems. While it may be possible to solve a problem while undertaking research, there is the added requirement of making some kind of contribution to knowledge. Up until this point I’ve been solving problems based on what I’ve read from the literature, but I’ve rarely gone beyond this to think what these solutions may be adding to knowledge.

It’s time to start looking at what contribution to knowledge my solution is making, that is, in what ways it is innovative. My current concept, which involves integrating ’status blogging’ services like twitter with an online social support network may not really innovative in a technical sense. Services like twitter wear their APIs on their sleeves, this is exactly the kind of thing they expect you to do. However, various insights could be gained from this research to contribute to a number of fields. Some random thoughts:

• How should interfaces be designed to encourage support of people sending their status to online support networks?
• Is the opportunity to self-reflect a motivator for the reciprocation of social support in online social networks? If so, are people more likely to give support in discussion threads (compared to the twitter-based solution) where they have more opportunity to self-reflect?
• What effect does group size have on the reciprocation of social support?

As is finally becoming clear, you can spin something however you like. I’ve had my moments over the last couple of days when it’s seemed like considering reciprocity in this situation is a bit arbitrary. I feel like this is the ill-advised desire for the ‘right’ answer rearing its head again. In research, I feel like perhaps things don’t ‘click’ into place quite as often, or at least the clicking takes so much time that you don’t even realise it’s happening. While I realise that delving into the world of research is something that I need to do, part of me just wants to smack down some serious interface designs and get stuff happening. Patience and focus are the order of the day…

So, I’m still feeling a bit lost and I have to have a decision for my supervisors this afternoon. But that’s ok, I feel like somehow this is a reasonably normal process to be going through, especially when moving from the ’solution-based’ mindset of computer science (my undergraduate degree) to the ‘contribution-based’ mindset of scholarly research.