Using a Self-Compassion Intervention to Increase Engineering Self-Efficacy in Women Pursuing Engineering in Higher Education

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Description
Encouraging women’s pursuit and retention in higher education has been an important movement in the United States over the last several decades. While there has been considerable progress, women are still underrepresented in fields related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and

Encouraging women’s pursuit and retention in higher education has been an important movement in the United States over the last several decades. While there has been considerable progress, women are still underrepresented in fields related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The most significant gender gap being engineering, where women make up only 21% of all engineering majors. Lack of self-efficacy is one variable that has been implicated as a barrier for women in engineering, due to implicit and explicit biases and discrimination women experience relating to engineering in higher education. Self-compassion has been shown to be strongly correlated with self-efficacy, with explanations theorized at the level of each positive subcomponent: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. The current study investigates the effects of a self-compassion mindstate induction (SCMI) intervention on engineering self-efficacy compared to a control group. This study also explores gender and race discrimination from faculty and peers in the participants' environment to observe if this plays a role in the effect of the intervention. Women (N = 73) majoring in engineering were recruited from a large southwestern university to participate. A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted, revealing a significant three-way interaction for condition type (SCMI or control), discrimination scores, and engineering self-efficacy from Time 1 to Time 2 (F(1, 69) = 6.51, p = .01). The results of this study suggest that participants in the SCMI condition experienced a significant increase in engineering self-efficacy from Time 1 to Time 2 when controlling for discrimination in the women's environment. Self-compassion based interventions that have the potential to increase engineering self-efficacy may be particularly helpful to women who experience more gender and race discrimination in their environment. Future work should be done to examine discrimination more directly in the context of self-compassion and engineering self-efficacy. These results show promise for using brief, accessible, cost-free, positive psychology interventions to support women pursuing engineering in higher education. This research contributes to the literature aiming to address gender disparities in engineering higher education, laying the groundwork for future interventions that support underrepresented populations in STEM.
Date Created
2024
Agent

Police Jiu-Jitsu: Engineering Optimal Outcomes in Use of Force Application to Reduce Major Injuries to Citizens and Officers

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Description
Police use of force is an issue that generates considerable public interest. Seeing police use of force in person or via video recordings seldom looks good for the viewer. Police must constantly be aware of their reasons for using force,

Police use of force is an issue that generates considerable public interest. Seeing police use of force in person or via video recordings seldom looks good for the viewer. Police must constantly be aware of their reasons for using force, the methods that they employ, and the decisions that they make in using force. Optimal results come from optimal decision-making, but analyzing whether the training that police receive leads to optimal decision-making is not a topic that has been researched often. By utilizing the martial art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the Mesa Police Department has taught their officers how to maintain broad focus of attention on their environment and more time to analytically decide how and what force modalities to employ in any given situation. This has resulted in significantly less serious physical injuries to officers and citizens and optimal decisions in critical incidents.
Date Created
2024
Agent

Evaluating Situational Awareness in Human-Robot Interaction

Description

I compared scores of situational awareness to mission performance scores from the Human-Robot Interaction Lab at the ASU campus. This study uses Roblox in a virtual environment to simulate a search and rescue environment. Higher situational awareness was seen to

I compared scores of situational awareness to mission performance scores from the Human-Robot Interaction Lab at the ASU campus. This study uses Roblox in a virtual environment to simulate a search and rescue environment. Higher situational awareness was seen to be positively correlated with mission performance scores, but the study is yet to be complete.

Date Created
2023-05
Agent

How Confidence Information Influences Trust and Reliance in Human-Robot Teams

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Description
Human-robot teams (HRTs) have seen more frequent use over the past few years,specifically, in the context of Search and Rescue (SAR) environments. Trust is an important factor in the success of HRTs. Both trust and reliance must be appropriately calibrated

Human-robot teams (HRTs) have seen more frequent use over the past few years,specifically, in the context of Search and Rescue (SAR) environments. Trust is an important factor in the success of HRTs. Both trust and reliance must be appropriately calibrated for the human operator to work faultlessly with a robot teammate. In highly complex and time restrictive environments, such as a search and rescue mission following a disaster, uncertainty information may be given by the robot in the form of confidence to help properly calibrate trust and reliance. This study seeks to examine the impact that confidence information may have on trust and how it may help calibrate reliance in complex HRTs. Trust and reliance data were gathered using a simulated SAR task environment for participants who then received confidence information from the robot for one of two missions. Results from this study indicated that trust was higher when participants received confidence information from the robot, however, no clear relationship between confidence and reliance were found. The findings from this study can be used to further improve human-robot teaming in search and rescue tasks.
Date Created
2022
Agent

Current American Perception of Unique Patient Identifiers in Relation to Enhancing Health Information Exchange: Trade-Offs, Implications, and Future Possible Use Within the United States

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Description

Patient identification is becoming more crucially important, particularly as healthcare is becoming more data based and automated. Patient misidentification can cause a series of issues that affect patient safety and the quality of care, including increased time and money from

Patient identification is becoming more crucially important, particularly as healthcare is becoming more data based and automated. Patient misidentification can cause a series of issues that affect patient safety and the quality of care, including increased time and money from the medical institution. Additionally, with the lack of standardization for identifying patients, interoperability is limited and Health Information Exchange cannot be optimized, One partial solution to the problem would be the implementation of a Unique Patient Identifier system; however, the United States has had some controversy over the implementation of such as system in the past as Congress prohibited any funding from going towards a UPI system in 1998 after HIPAA introduced a Unique Patient Identifier mandate in 1996. However, with more than 2 decades passing since the Congressional ban, the general American perception of Unique Patient Identifiers is not well known. This study attempts to answer the question of the current American perception of the implementation of a UPI system through an informational survey that induces critical thinking when answering qualitative questions with supportive quantitative questions. Participants were generally in favor of the implementation of a UPI system, and through a Chi-square analysis, it was shown that there was an association between knowledge learned about Unique Patient Identifiers in relation to the current identification system and developing a positive perception towards UPI implementation; however, this study cannot be generalized to the public as the sample size was not large enough and was not representative of the entire population. Still, future research should be conducted in relation to this subject as UPIs are a potential solution to our current “identity crisis”.

Date Created
2022-05
Agent

ASU's COVID-19 Response, the Impact to the College Experience, and Assessment of Systems Adopted

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Description

This paper explores the technological systems used by Arizona State University’s Housing department during the course of 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic which struck the state of Arizona. The COVID-19 epidemic is the

This paper explores the technological systems used by Arizona State University’s Housing department during the course of 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic which struck the state of Arizona. The COVID-19 epidemic is the largest pandemic in recent memory. It has affected all walks of life, from social economic damages, widespread panic and the rise of civil unrest. One of the most profound effects from this generation of students is the impact it has had in all levels of education from kindergarten to graduate school. The American education system has been heavily affected since the pandemic first started. Due to the lockdowns, traditional education practices such as in-person classrooms, class labs, and even the psychological impact of physical distancing has affected students’ educational experiences. This disruption has also greatly affected our college system. In response to problems such as the lockdowns, slow rate of infections per student, many colleges have made extensive use of technological aids, substitutes, and systems to combat the damage done to the education system. This resulted in switching of in-person course work to online based assignments and tests. The colleges response to the pandemic has not only been online, but in-person as well. ASU has adopted a variety of systems to track its students’ and employees’ health statuses. This is done via the use of the Daily Heath Check System (an application used by ASU to track the health of both students and faculty), and the use of randomized testing. This enabled the tracking and monitoring of the rate of infections within the ASU community. ASU has also installed hand sanitizer machines in every building as well as providing a supply of health and safety equipment to necessary staff. These systems, products, and preventative practices have been put into place for the protection of not only the students but employees of ASU. However, one key consideration about the adoption of these measures, is whether or not they are truly effective. One of the areas explored are the problems with the adoption of these systems and how they were implemented. Meaning that these systems adopted resulted in either less then successful outcomes or causing student displeasure towards the systems that were implemented.

Date Created
2021-12
Agent

EHR-mediated Workflow Analysis and Optimization Framework in PreOp Settings

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Description
Perioperative care has a direct and crucial impact on patient safety and patient outcomes, as well as the financial viability of the healthcare facility. The time pressure and workload of caring patients facing surgery are heavier than caring inpatients of

Perioperative care has a direct and crucial impact on patient safety and patient outcomes, as well as the financial viability of the healthcare facility. The time pressure and workload of caring patients facing surgery are heavier than caring inpatients of other departments. This workload raises requirements for PreOp nurses, the primary PreOp caregiver, to complete information gathering, screening, and verification tasks accurately and efficiently. EHRs (Electronic Health Record System) have evolved continuously with increasing features to meet newly raised needs and expectations. Many healthcare institutions have undergone EHR conversion since the introduction of first-generation EHRs. Thus, the need for a systematic evaluation of changed information system workflow following conversion is becoming more and more manifest. There are a growing number of methods for analyzing health information technology use. However, few studies provide and apply a standard method to understand the impact of EHR transition and inspire opportunities for improvement. This dissertation focuses on PreOp nurse’s EHR use in PreOp settings. The goals of this dissertation are to: (a) introduce a systematic framework to evaluate EHR-mediated workflow and the impact of the EHR transition; (b) understand the impact of different EHR systems on PreOp nurse’s workflow and preoperative care efficiency; (c) transform the evaluation results into practical user-centered EHR designs. This research draws on computational ethnography, cognitive engineering process and user-centered design concepts to build a practical approach for EHR transition-related workflow evaluation and optimization. Observational data were collected before and after a large-scale EHR conversion throughout Mayo Clinic’s different regional health systems. For a structured computational evaluation framework, the time-efficiency of PreOp nurses’ work were compared quantitatively by means of coding and segmenting nurses’ tasks. Interview data provided contextual information, reflecting practical challenges and opportunities before and after the EHR transition. The total case time, the time spent on EHR, and the task fragmentation were improved after converting to the new EHR system. A trend of standardization of information-related workflow and EHR transition was observed. Notably, the approach helped to identify current new system challenges and pointed out potential optimization solutions.
Date Created
2021
Agent

A Study of Explainable Decision Support for Longitudinal Sequential Decision Making

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Description
Decision support systems aid the human-in-the-loop by enhancing the quality of decisions and the ease of making them in complex decision-making scenarios. In the recent years, such systems have been empowered with automated techniques for sequential decision making or planning

Decision support systems aid the human-in-the-loop by enhancing the quality of decisions and the ease of making them in complex decision-making scenarios. In the recent years, such systems have been empowered with automated techniques for sequential decision making or planning tasks to effectively assist and cooperate with the human-in-the-loop. This has received significant recognition in the planning as well as human computer interaction communities as such systems connect the key elements of automated planning in decision support to principles of naturalistic decision making in the HCI community. A decision support system, in addition to providing planning support, must be able to provide intuitive explanations based on specific user queries for proposed decisions to its end users. Using this as motivation, I consider scenarios where the user questions the system's suggestion by providing alternatives (referred to as foils). In response, I empower existing decision support technologies to engage in an interactive explanatory dialogue with the user and provide contrastive explanations based on user-specified foils to reach a consensus on proposed decisions. Furthermore, the foils specified by the user can be indicative of the latent preferences of the user. I use this interpretation to equip existing decision support technologies with three different interaction strategies that utilize the foil to provide revised plan suggestions. Finally, as part of my Master's thesis, I present RADAR-X, an extension of RADAR, a proactive decision support system, that showcases the above mentioned capabilities. Further, I present a user-study evaluation that emphasizes the need for contrastive explanations and a computational evaluation of the mentioned interaction strategies.
Date Created
2021
Agent

Executive Function (Anticipation) Differences Between Soccer Players With and Without a History of Traumatic Brain Injury

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Description
The present study sought to understand traumatic brain injuries (TBI) impact on executive function (EF) in terms of anticipation amongst individuals with a background in soccer; along with other contributing factors of EF curtailments that inhibit athletes. Within this study

The present study sought to understand traumatic brain injuries (TBI) impact on executive function (EF) in terms of anticipation amongst individuals with a background in soccer; along with other contributing factors of EF curtailments that inhibit athletes. Within this study 57 participants, with a background in soccer (high school, collegiate, and semi-professional), completed five EF tasks: working memory, cognitive flexibility, attentional control, and anticipation; pattern detection and athletic cues (temporal occlusion). The results of this study concluded that when TBI history, gender, and soccer athletic level are factors, athletes with a soccer level of collegiate and semi-professional had decrements related to pattern detection anticipation; meaning athletes at higher levels had lower average scores on the Brixton Spatial Anticipation Test (BSAT). Additionally, female athletes showed more anticipation decrements related to athletic cues, especially those that are reliant on the initiation of judgment. Overall undiagnosed TBIs and limited understanding on how to approach rehabilitation to mitigate EF decrements, continue to impede individual autonomy amongst athletes. Keywords: Traumatic brain injury, executive function, anticipation, soccer, temporal occlusion, Brixton Spatial Anticipation Test (BSAT), collegiate, semi-professional, pattern detection, rehabilitation
Date Created
2021
Agent

Diabetes Education/Management Needs for Chinese Americans with Type 2 Diabetes: Opportunities and Implications for Design

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Description

Diabetes education has shown to improve diabetes health markers but there is a need for it to be more accessible Diabetes education in the form of Diabetes Self Education and Management (DSMES) could potentially utilize IT technologies, which have shown

Diabetes education has shown to improve diabetes health markers but there is a need for it to be more accessible Diabetes education in the form of Diabetes Self Education and Management (DSMES) could potentially utilize IT technologies, which have shown promise as a more accessible way to access healthcare and manage health. However, both these methods have not been optimized for the diverse population in the US. In particular, Chinese Americans are a growing minority group in America whose health needs such as diabetes type 2 are growing. As a cultural group, Chinese Americans have cultural characteristics that have been identified in the literature, which should be accounted for in the design of a technology-enabled DSMES program. This qualitative study aims to understand what ways Chinese Americans with type 2 diabetes are learning about and managing diabetes, as well as their technology usage. Themes such as cultural food importance, family roles, information acquisition, and attitudes and motivation emerged. Themes motivated the design implications and recommendations such as creating a more specified, culturally tailored Chinese food menu, integrated family features, and trackers with increased feedback. More research should be conducted to test the effectiveness of including these features in a technology-enabled DSMES program.

Date Created
2021-05
Agent