Title: Realizing Choice: Online Safeguards for Couples Adapting to Cognitive Challenges
This paper investigates qualitatively what happens when couples facing a spectrum of options must arrive at consensual choices together. We conducted an observational study of couples experiencing memory concerns (one or both) while the partners engaged in the process of reviewing and selecting “Safety Setting” options for online activities. Couples’ choices tended to be influenced by a desire to secure shared assets through mutual surveillance and a desire to preserve autonomy by granting freedom in social and personal activities. The availability of choice suits the uneven and unpredictable process of memory loss and couples’ acknowledged uncertainty about its trajectory, leading them to anticipate changing Safety Settings as one or both of them experience further cognitive decline. Reflecting these three decision drivers, we conclude with implications for a design system that offers flexibility and adaptability in variety of settings, accommodates the uncertainty of memory loss, preserves autonomy, and supports collaborative management of shared assets. more »« less
McDonald, Nora; Mentis, Helena M.(
, Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)
null
(Ed.)
Designing technologies that support the mutual cybersecurity and autonomy of older adults facing cognitive challenges requires close collaboration of partners. As part of research to design a Safety Setting application for older adults with memory loss or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), we use a scenario-based participatory design. Our study builds on previous findings that couples’ approach to memory loss was characterized by a desire for flexibility and choice, and an embrace of role uncertainty. We find that couples don't want a system that fundamentally alters their relationship and are looking to maximize self-surveillance competence and minimize loss of autonomy for their partners. All desire Safety Settings to maintain their mutual safety rather than designating one partner as the target of oversight. Couples are open to more rigorous surveillance if they have control over what types of activities trigger various levels of oversight.
Mcdonald, Nora; Mentis, Helena M.(
, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction)
null
(Ed.)
Designing technologies that support the cybersecurity of older adults with memory concerns involves wrestling with an uncomfortable paradox between surveillance and independence and the close collaboration of couples. This research captures the interactions between older adult couples where one or both have memory concerns—a primary feature of cognitive decline—as they make decisions on how to safeguard their online activities using a Safety Setting probe we designed, and over the course of several informal interviews and a diary study. Throughout, couples demonstrated a collaborative mentality to which we apply a frame of citizenship in opensource collaboration, specifically (a) histories of participation , (b) lower barriers to participation, and (c) maintaining ongoing contribution. In this metaphor of collaborative enterprise, one partner (or member of the couple) may be the service provider and the other may be the participant, but at varying moments, they may switch roles while still maintaining a collaborative focus on preserving shared assets and freedom on the internet. We conclude with a discussion of what this service provider-contributor mentality means for empowerment through citizenship, and implications for vulnerable populations’ cybersecurity.
In March 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic forced universities across the United States to immediately stop face-to-face activities and transition to virtual instruction. While this transition was not easy for anyone, the shift to online learning was especially difficult for STEM courses, particularly engineering, which has a strong practical/laboratory component. Additionally, underrepresented students (URMs) in engineering experienced a range of difficulties during this transition.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight underrepresented engineering students’ experiences as a result of COVID-19. In particular, we aim to highlight stories shared by participants who indicated a desire to share their experience with their instructor. In order to better understand these experiences, research participants were asked to share a story, using the novel data collection platform SenseMaker, based on the following prompt: Imagine you are chatting with a friend or family member about the evolving COVID-19 crisis. Tell them about something you have experienced recently as an engineering student.
Conducting a SenseMaker study involves four iterative steps: 1) Initiation is the process of designing signifiers, testing, and deploying the instrument; 2) Story Collection is the process of collecting data through narratives; 3) Sense-making is the process of exploring and analyzing patterns of the collection of narratives; and 4) Response is the process of amplifying positive stories and dampening negative stories to nudge the system to an adjacent possible (Van der Merwe et al. 2019). Unlike traditional surveys or other qualitative data collection methods, SenseMaker encourages participants to think more critically about the stories they share by inviting them to make sense of their story using a series of triads and dyads.
After completing their narrative, participants were asked a series of triadic, dyadic, and sentiment-based multiple-choice questions (MCQ) relevant to their story. For one MCQ, in particular, participants were required to answer was “If you could do so without fear of judgment or retaliation, who would you share this story with?” and were given the following options: 1) Family 2) Instructor 3) Peers 4) Prefer not to answer 5) Other. A third of the participants indicated that they would share their story with their instructor. Therefore, we further explored this particular question. Additionally, this paper aims to highlight this subset of students whose primary motivation for their actions were based on Necessity. High-level qualitative findings from the data show that students valued Grit and Perseverance, recent experiences influenced their Sense of Purpose, and their decisions were majorly made based on Intuition. Chi-squared tests showed that there were not any significant differences between race and the desire to share with their instructor, however, there were significant differences when factoring in gender suggesting that gender has a large impact on the complexity of navigating school during this time. Lastly, ~50% of participants reported feeling negative or extremely negative about their experiences, ~30% reported feeling neutral, and ~20% reported feeling positive or extremely positive about their experiences.
In the study, a total of 500 micro-narratives from underrepresented engineering students were collected from June – July 2020. Undergraduate and graduate students were recruited for participation through the researchers’ personal networks, social media, and through organizations like NSBE. Participants had the option to indicate who is able to read their stories 1) Everyone 2) Researchers Only, or 3) No one. This work presents qualitative stories of those who granted permission for everyone to read.
Berdahl, Mira; Leguy, Gunter; Lipscomb, William H.; Urban, Nathan M.; Hoffman, Matthew J.(
, The Cryosphere)
Abstract. Multi-meter sea level rise (SLR) is thought to be possible within the next few centuries, with most of the uncertainty originating from the Antarctic land ice contribution. One source of uncertainty relates to the ice sheet model initialization. Since ice sheets have a long response time (compared to other Earth system components such as the atmosphere), ice sheet model initialization methods can have significant impacts on how the ice sheet responds to future forcings. To assess this, we generated 25 different ice sheet spin-ups, using the Community Ice Sheet Model (CISM) at a 4 km resolution. During each spin-up, we varied two key parameters known to impact the sensitivity of the ice sheet to future forcing: one related to the sensitivity of the ice shelf melt rate to ocean thermal forcing (TF) and the other related to the basal friction. The spin-ups all nudge toward observed thickness and enforce a no-advance calving criterion, such that all final spin-up states resemble observations but differ in their melt and friction parameter settings. Each spin-up was then forced with future ocean thermal forcings from 13 different CMIP6 models under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP)5-8.5 emissions scenarioand modern climatological surface mass balance data. Our results show that the effects of the ice sheet and ocean parameter settings used during the spin-up are capable of impacting multi-century future SLR predictions by as much as 2 m. By the end of this century, the effects of these choices are more modest, but still significant, with differences of up to 0.2 m of SLR. We have identified a combined ocean and ice parameter space that leads to widespread mass loss within 500 years (low friction and high melt rate sensitivity). To explore temperature thresholds, we also ran a synthetically forced CISM ensemble that is focused on the Amundsen region only. Given certain ocean and ice parameter choices, Amundsen mass loss can be triggered with thermal forcing anomalies between 1.5 and 2 ∘C relative to the spin-up.Our results emphasize the critical importance of considering ice sheet and ocean parameter choices during spin-up for SLR predictions and suggest the importance of including glacial isostatic adjustment in ice sheet simulations.
Promoting epistemic agency in science classrooms benefits student learning. One critical variable in the development of epistemic agency is the activation of intrinsic motivation that can happen when cognitive authority is shared between teachers and students. With the recent pivot to online teaching, opportunities to engage in such learning environments have been challenging using online platforms. We investigate one teacher’s implementation of a science unit that was delivered online. While the unit was specifically constructed to build epistemic agency with students in in-person classes, using various instructional design choices, this teacher was able to cede cognitive authority over to his students by engaging them in activities that improved intrinsic motivation. We describe those choices, such as, using unmonitored scaffolds to enable student autonomy, and leveraging familiarity with their local context through peer-led collaborations. We then discuss implications for this research in support of better learning and engagement in online environments.
@article{osti_10187071,
place = {Country unknown/Code not available},
title = {Realizing Choice: Online Safeguards for Couples Adapting to Cognitive Challenges},
url = {https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10187071},
abstractNote = {This paper investigates qualitatively what happens when couples facing a spectrum of options must arrive at consensual choices together. We conducted an observational study of couples experiencing memory concerns (one or both) while the partners engaged in the process of reviewing and selecting “Safety Setting” options for online activities. Couples’ choices tended to be influenced by a desire to secure shared assets through mutual surveillance and a desire to preserve autonomy by granting freedom in social and personal activities. The availability of choice suits the uneven and unpredictable process of memory loss and couples’ acknowledged uncertainty about its trajectory, leading them to anticipate changing Safety Settings as one or both of them experience further cognitive decline. Reflecting these three decision drivers, we conclude with implications for a design system that offers flexibility and adaptability in variety of settings, accommodates the uncertainty of memory loss, preserves autonomy, and supports collaborative management of shared assets.},
journal = {Sixteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security ({SOUPS} 2020)},
author = {McDonald, Nora and Larsen, Alison and Battisti, Allison and Madjaroff, Galina and Massey, Aaron and Mentis, Helena},
}
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