De Peer Support Group Kwalitatief Onderzoek van de HU is een groeiende, zelfsturende, HU-brede groep die is ontstaan uit de behoefte van onderzoekers en docenten om als ‘peers’ onderling kennis en ervaring te delen met betrekking tot kwalitatief onderzoek. De logistiek en organisatie van deze groep heeft een zeer fluïde karakter. Zij vormt zich naar de inhoudelijke en organisatorische behoeften van de groep. Deze behoeften zijn continu in beweging door onder andere veranderingen binnen de organisatie van de HU en de verschillende werkvelden en onderzoeksdomeinen waaruit de deelnemers afkomstig zijn. Maar ook door de ontwikkelingen die plaatsvinden op het terrein van kwalitatief onderzoek, binnen de eigen Peer Support Group (PSG) zelf en van de individuen die deel uitmaken van de PSG. In deze bijdrage zal ik nader uiteenzetten hoe complexiteit een rol speelt in het ontstaan en functioneren van de PSG.
Although empathy is an essential aspect of co-design, the design community lacks a systematic overview of the key dimensions and elements that foster empathy in design. This paper introduces an empathic formation compass, based on a comparison of existing relevant frameworks. Empathic formation is defined here as the formative process of becoming an empathic design professional who knows which attitude, skills and knowledge are applicable in a co-design process. The empathic formation compass provides designers with a vocabulary that helps them understand what kind of key dimensions and elements influence empathic formation in co-design and how that informs designers’ role and design decisions. In addition, the empathic formation compass aims to support reflection and to evaluate co-design projects beyond the mere reliance on methods. In this way, empathic design can be made into a conscious activity in which designers regulate and include their own feelings and experiences (first-person perspective), and decrease empathic bias. We identify four important intersecting dimensions that empathy is comprised of in design and describe their dynamic relations. The first two opposing dimensions are denoted by empathy and differentiate between cognitive design processes and affective design experiences, and between self-and other orientation. The other two dimensions are defined by design research and differentiate between an expert and a participatory mindset, and research-and design-led techniques. The empathic formation compass strengthens and enriches our earlier work on mixed perspectives with these specific dimensions and describes the factors that foster empathy in design from a more contextual position. We expect the empathic formation compass—combined with the mixed perspectives framework—to enhance future research by bringing about a deeper understanding of designers’ empathic and collaborative design practice.
To understand under what conditions intercultural group work (IGW) leads to more intercultural interactions, a survey was conducted among local students (n = 80) and international students (n = 153) in Dutch universities. In this study, students were more inclined to engage in intercultural interactions when they perceived that working with culturally diverse others prepared them to work and live in a diverse setting. The positive association was strengthened when students perceived that diversity, in terms of nationality within their work group, was also beneficial for accomplishing their group task. The findings demonstrate the significance of students’ perceptions of IGW, including the perceived general value for personal development and intellectual benefits related to specific tasks. This implies that institutions and teachers could be made responsible for engaging with innovative educational methods to address and incorporate student diversity into curriculum.
MULTIFILE
Digital transformation has been recognized for its potential to contribute to sustainability goals. It requires companies to develop their Data Analytic Capability (DAC), defined as their ability to collect, manage and analyze data effectively. Despite the governmental efforts to promote digitalization, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how to proceed, with 37% of Dutch SMEs reporting a lack of knowledge, and 33% reporting a lack of support in developing DAC. Participants in the interviews that we organized preparing this proposal indicated a need for guidance on how to develop DAC within their organization given their unique context (e.g. age and experience of the workforce, presence of legacy systems, high daily workload, lack of knowledge of digitalization). While a lot of attention has been given to the technological aspects of DAC, the people, process, and organizational culture aspects are as important, requiring a comprehensive approach and thus a bundling of knowledge from different expertise. Therefore, the objective of this KIEM proposal is to identify organizational enablers and inhibitors of DAC through a series of interviews and case studies, and use these to formulate a preliminary roadmap to DAC. From a structure perspective, the objective of the KIEM proposal will be to explore and solidify the partnership between Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), Avans University of Applied Sciences (Avans), Logistics Community Brabant (LCB), van Berkel Logistics BV, Smink Group BV, and iValueImprovement BV. This partnership will be used to develop the preliminary roadmap and pre-test it using action methodology. The action research protocol and preliminary roadmap thereby developed in this KIEM project will form the basis for a subsequent RAAK proposal.
Due to societal developments, like the introduction of the ‘civil society’, policy stimulating longer living at home and the separation of housing and care, the housing situation of older citizens is a relevant and pressing issue for housing-, governance- and care organizations. The current situation of living with care already benefits from technological advancement. The wide application of technology especially in care homes brings the emergence of a new source of information that becomes invaluable in order to understand how the smart urban environment affects the health of older people. The goal of this proposal is to develop an approach for designing smart neighborhoods, in order to assist and engage older adults living there. This approach will be applied to a neighborhood in Aalst-Waalre which will be developed into a living lab. The research will involve: (1) Insight into social-spatial factors underlying a smart neighborhood; (2) Identifying governance and organizational context; (3) Identifying needs and preferences of the (future) inhabitant; (4) Matching needs & preferences to potential socio-techno-spatial solutions. A mixed methods approach fusing quantitative and qualitative methods towards understanding the impacts of smart environment will be investigated. After 12 months, employing several concepts of urban computing, such as pattern recognition and predictive modelling , using the focus groups from the different organizations as well as primary end-users, and exploring how physiological data can be embedded in data-driven strategies for the enhancement of active ageing in this neighborhood will result in design solutions and strategies for a more care-friendly neighborhood.
Everyone has the right to participate in society to the best of their ability. This right also applies to people with a visual impairment, in combination with a severe or profound intellectual and possibly motor disability (VISPIMD). However, due to their limitations, for their participation these people are often highly dependent on those around them, such as family members andhealthcare professionals. They determine how people with VISPIMD participate and to what extent. To optimize this support, they must have a good understanding of what people with disabilities can still do with their remaining vision.It is currently difficult to gain insight into the visual abilities of people with disabilities, especially those with VISPIMD. As a professional said, "Everything we can think of or develop to assess the functional vision of this vulnerable group will help improve our understanding and thus our ability to support them. Now, we are more or less guessing about what they can see.Moreover, what little we know about their vision is hard to communicate to other professionals”. Therefore, there is a need for methods that can provide insight into the functional vision of people with VISPIMD, in order to predict their options in daily life situations. This is crucial knowledge to ensure that these people can participate in society to their fullest extent.What makes it so difficult to get this insight at the moment? Visual impairments can be caused by a range of eye or brain disorders and can manifest in various ways. While we understand fairly well how low vision affects a person's abilities on relatively simple visual tasks, it is much more difficult to predict this in more complex dynamic everyday situations such asfinding your way or moving around during daily activities. This is because, among other things, conventional ophthalmic tests provide little information about what people can do with their remaining vision in everyday life (i.e., their functional vision).An additional problem in assessing vision in people with intellectual disabilities is that many conventional tests are difficult to perform or are too fatiguing, resulting in either no or the wrong information. In addition to their visual impairment, there is also a very serious intellectual disability (possibly combined with a motor impairment), which makes it even more complex to assesstheir functional vision. Due to the interplay between their visual, intellectual, and motor disabilities, it is almost impossible to determine whether persons are unable to perform an activity because they do not see it, do not notice it, do not understand it, cannot communicate about it, or are not able to move their head towards the stimulus due to motor disabilities.Although an expert professional can make a reasonable estimate of the functional possibilities through long-term and careful observation, the time and correct measurement data are usually lacking to find out the required information. So far, it is insufficiently clear what people with VZEVMB provoke to see and what they see exactly.Our goal with this project is to improve the understanding of the visual capabilities of people with VISPIMD. This then makes it possible to also improve the support for participation of the target group. We want to achieve this goal by developing and, in pilot form, testing a new combination of measurement and analysis methods - primarily based on eye movement registration -to determine the functional vision of people with VISPIMD. Our goal is to systematically determine what someone is responding to (“what”), where it may be (“where”), and how much time that response will take (“when”). When developing methods, we take the possibilities and preferences of the person in question as a starting point in relation to the technological possibilities.Because existing technological methods were originally developed for a different purpose, this partly requires adaptation to the possibilities of the target group.The concrete end product of our pilot will be a manual with an overview of available technological methods (as well as the methods themselves) for assessing functional vision, linked to the specific characteristics of the target group in the cognitive, motor area: 'Given that a client has this (estimated) combination of limitations (cognitive, motor and attention, time in whichsomeone can concentrate), the order of assessments is as follows:' followed by a description of the methods. We will also report on our findings in a workshop for professionals, a Dutch-language article and at least two scientific articles. This project is executed in the line: “I am seen; with all my strengths and limitations”. During the project, we closely collaborate with relevant stakeholders, i.e. the professionals with specific expertise working with the target group, family members of the persons with VISPIMD, and persons experiencing a visual impairment (‘experience experts’).
