#researchplan

During my tutorial Mark and Emily mentioned that I should continue exploring broad topics and research. To make my research more broad I decided to create a mind map around Human interaction and experience to choose 3-4 sets of data I wish to collect this week.

From this Mind map I could explore:

Conversations with a collection of my friends and family. - Including methods of communication and relationship.

Collecting different names for objects and thing - exploring place where you live and why we call it that.

Preferences - Asking people what sports teams they support, what types of music they like and dislike - Asking them why they have these preferences

Exploring slang and sarcasm

Exploring palm lines and wrinkles - How do they tell someones story?

Research Plan Set Up

After we had visited the Kloof SPCA and determined what problem we would be focusing on to solve, we came together as a group via a video call. We discussed how we wanted to lay out our research plan for the assignment. The research plan consists of the following sections in this order: abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, ethics, risk, and resource analysis, conclusion, and appendixes. These sections will all contribute to solving the problem we have identified.

As you can see on the poster, each group member was allocated sections to write about; the sections assigned to me were the methodology and ethics. The sections that I wrote about will be explained further in the following posts.

Image References: 

Methodology line icon development process sign vector image. [Online image]. (n.d.). Vector Stock. https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/methodology-line-icon-development-process-sign-vector-22870984

Introduction to My Field Research Collection Diary.

I am going to be taking you through my field research collection diary.

Starting with an introduction. In one of my Post Grad subjects, Service Design, we were assigned to form a group, and within this group, we had to select and agree on a nonprofit organization we wanted to help. Once the selection process was complete, we needed to investigate further whether they needed our help to solve a problem that they faced. Once the problem was found, the group put together a research plan that will help us solve the problem the nonprofit organisation is facing. The processes will be explained further in the posts that will follow this one.  The process of putting the research plan together has been completed. The following posts on this Tumblr account will explain the process of what research was collected and why.  Image References:  Brief Icon PNG Transparent Background. [Online image]. (n.d.). Free Icons PNG. https://www.freeiconspng.com/img/14277

Workspace in Transition: research plan mapping of preliminary literature review and methodologies.  

Considering ways to capture and share memories/experiences in an engaging yet delightful way. 

Note: this is for an idea I’m not 100% sure I’ll continue with yet.

Understand competitive landscape

Understand opportunity space

Explore existing solutions

Understand psychology of storing memories

Understand motivations for/meaning of sharing memories

Understand ways existing solutions are lacking 

          Some questions that come to mind

When do people want to share memories?

What makes people store certain memories over other ones?

Do people want to store memories for specific occasions or just about any time? What is considered an “occasion”?

How are some ways that people already store memories? Take a note? Sketch? Make a recording? Take a picture? Journal, diary, pictures?  

Do they look back on these memories? How often do they look back at them? Survey

Qualitative Research Methods:

Individual interviews to understand their process of storing and accessing memories.

Identify appropriate set of participants (age/interests/social sharing preferences — this can be interesting... maybe I want people who are both open to sharing and also private)

  QAC 201

Research Plan: Passion Driven Statistics

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The Association between Gender, Physical Activity and Depressive Mental Attitude Among Female Adolescents in  7th Through 12th grade.

Kimora Brock, Wesleyan University 

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Introduction

Existing studies prove that when it comes to people who struggle with depression, women are much more likely to accrue the disorder than men. Teenage depression in particular, is a very serious clinical illness that affects approximately 20% of adolescents before they reach adulthood. This is why over half of the advertisements seen on television, magazines, and the internet that are geared towards depression feature a woman as the patient. There is not much research on the ways to prevent this debilitating illness, but the vast majority of research to date has focused on promoting mental health by facilitation of physical activity and resilience is of great importance during adolescence. Girls are reportedly less physically active and have more depressive symptoms compared to boys. Higher physical activity was associated with lower depressive symptoms for girls. On the other side of the gender spectrum, boys research suggested that the higher the physical activity, the higher impact on boys’ depression. (Moljord, I. E. O., Moksnes, U. K., Espnes, G. A., Hjemdal, O., & Eriksen, L. (2014)

Studies have concluded already that higher levels of physical activity among children and young adolescents, and lower levels of leisure-time screen use among young adolescents, are associated with lower depressive symptoms, but more studies are needed to understand the causal relationships between these variables. ( Kremer P, Elshaug C, Leslie E, Toumbourou JW, Patton GC, Williams J.) Although recently there has been an increase in the number of studies researching the affects of physical activity on mental attitude, many key questions are left out. My research aims to answer the unresolved questions the prior research previously neglected. In the research I aim to detail the statistical correlation between general health of the student population and the number of daily activities of the population. If how adolescents spend their leisure time actually effects their mental stability, determines if there is a statistical difference between male and female depression, if stress could result in depression, and how hobbies and enjoyable activities can reduce this stress in adolescents. (Benjamin D. Sylvestera, , Diane E. Mackb, , , Michael A. Busseric, , Philip M. Wilsonb, , Mark R. Beauchampa,) 

Some other question I hope to answer include:

Are the depressive symptoms already there?

When does the onset of depressive mental attitude begin? (Rebar, A. L., Vandelanotte, C., van Uffelen, J., Short, C., & Duncan, M. J.)

Is there a specific cause? (White, K)

Is there a difference in data for people who have mild (little d) depression or major (big d) depression?

Is it solely physical exercise that accounts for the relief of depressive symptoms, or is it merely the participation in an enjoyable activity that alleviates depressive symptoms? (Megan Teychenne, Kylie Ball, Jo Salmon)

Or a combination of both?

Methodology

The sample utilized in the Addhealth data set included a total of 132 schools. An administrator from each school was asked to complete a questionnaire.  “A sample of 80 high schools and 52 middle schools from the US was selected with unequal probability of selection. Incorporating systematic sampling methods and implicit stratification into the Add Health study design ensured this sample is representative of US schools with respect to region of country, urbanicity, school size, school type, and ethnicity.”

Harris, K.M., C.T. Halpern, E. Whitsel, J. Hussey, J. Tabor, P. Entzel, and J.R. Udry. 2009. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health: Research Design [WWW document]. URL: http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth/design.

The exact method can be found in the Add Health Code Book.

Measures

Most of the Add Health data within this project was categorical and collected from a multiple choice survey that had ranges for answers.

Predicted Results and Implications 

Left untreated, depression leads to drug abuse, relationship issues, and violence towards themselves or others. (McPhie and Rawana)

My hypothesis is that there will be a correlation between female physical activity and the dissipation of depressive symptoms. The difference between male and female symptoms, will be very distinct and statistically significant. Whether or not there is a correlation between physical activity and depressive mental attitude will ultimately determine that increased physical activity during the adolescent years of 7th through 12th grade results in a decrease of depressive symptoms for females.

References

Frazier, T., Hogue, C., Angold, A., & Worthman, C. M. (2011). Pathways to teenage female depression: the role testosterone plays in the interaction of birth weight and ecological stress on adolescent depression outcomes in girls. American Journal of Human Biology, 23(2), 258-258.

Maureen O'Dougherty, Mary O. Hearst, Moin Syed, Mindy S. Kurzer, Kathryn H. Schmitz, Life events, perceived stress and depressive symptoms in a physical activity intervention with young adult women, Mental Health and Physical Activity, Volume 5, Issue 2, December 2012, Pages 148-154, ISSN 1755-2966, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mhpa.2012.05.001.

Meghan L. McPhie, Jennine S. Rawana, Unravelling the relation between physical activity, self-esteem and depressive symptoms among early and late adolescents: A mediation analysis, Mental Health and Physical Activity, Volume 5, Issue 1, June 2012, Pages 43-49, ISSN 1755-2966, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mhpa.2012.03.003.

Kremer, P., Elshaug, C., Leslie, E., Toumbourou, J. W., Patton, G. C., & Williams, J. (2014). Physical activity, leisure-time screen use and depression among children and young adolescents. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 17(2), 183-187. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2013.03.012

Moljord, I. E. O., Moksnes, U. K., Espnes, G. A., Hjemdal, O., & Eriksen, L. (2014). Physical activity, resilience, and depressive symptoms in adolescence. Mental Health and Physical Activity, 7(2), 79-85. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mhpa.2014.04.001

Rebar, A. L., Vandelanotte, C., van Uffelen, J., Short, C., & Duncan, M. J. (2014). Associations of overall sitting time and sitting time in different contexts with depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. Mental Health and Physical Activity, 7(2), 105-110. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mhpa.2014.02.004

Steptoe, A. S., & Butler, N. (1996). Sports participation and emotional wellbeing in adolescents. The Lancet, 347(9018), 1789-1792. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(96)91616-5

White, K. (1999). Depression in teenage girls is likely to stem from stress. Journal of Women’s Health & Gender-Based Medicine, 8(6), 727-727. 

Harris, K.M., C.T. Halpern, E. Whitsel, J. Hussey, J. Tabor, P. Entzel, and J.R. Udry. 2009. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health: Research Design [WWW document]. URL: http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth/design.