How Do Groups Work? Age Differences in Performance and the Social Outcomes of Peer Collaboration

Research- and health-related youth advisory groups in Canada: An environmental scan with stakeholder interviews

BACKGROUND

Engaging youth throughout the research process improves research quality and outcomes. Youth advisory groups provide one way for youth to express their opinions on relevant issues.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to identify research- and health-related youth advisory groups ('groups') in Canada and understand the best practices of these groups.

METHODS

Google searches and supplementary methods were used to identify relevant groups in Canada. Group information was extracted from websites or through interviews with key informants.

RESULTS

We identified 40 groups. Groups were commonly part of a hospital/healthcare facility, nonprofit/health organization or research group. The majority focused on a specific content area, most commonly, mental health. Over half the groups advised on health services. Members' ages ranged from 9 to 35 years. The number of members ranged from 5 to 130. Interviews (n = 12) identified seven categories relating to group practices: (a) group purpose/objectives, (b) group development, (c) group operations, (d) group structure, (e) adult involvement, (f) membership and recruitment and (g) group access. Challenges and facilitators to the success of groups were described within the following themes: (a) retaining engagement, (b) creating a safe environment and (c) putting youth in positions of influence. Advice and recommendations were provided regarding the development of a new group.

CONCLUSION

This study provides a comprehensive overview of research- and health-related youth advisory groups in Canada. This information can be used to identify groups that stakeholders could access as well as inform the development of a new group.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

Youth advisory group representatives were interviewed as part of the study.

Interest and learning in informal science learning sites: Differences in experiences with different types of educators

This study explored topic interest, perceived learning and actual recall of exhibit content in 979 children and adolescents and 1,184 adults who visited informal science learning sites and interacted with an adult or youth educator or just the exhibit itself as part of family visits to the sites. Children in early childhood reported greater topic interest and perceived learning, but actually recalled less content, than participants in middle childhood or adolescence. Youth visitors reported greater interest after interacting with a youth educator than just the exhibit, and perceived that they learn more if they interact with an educator (youth or adult). Participants in middle childhood recall more when they encounter a youth educator. Adult visitors reported greater interest after interaction with a youth educator than with the exhibit alone or an adult educator. They also perceived that they learn more if they interact with an educator (youth or adult) than just the exhibit and perceived that they learned more if they interacted with a youth educator than an adult educator. Results highlight the benefits of educators in informal science learning sites and document the importance of attention to developmental needs.

The sampling precision of research in five major areas of psychology

After obtaining a sample of published, peer-reviewed articles from journals with high and low impact factors in social, cognitive, neuro-, developmental, and clinical psychology, we used a priori equations recently derived by Trafimow (Educational and Psychological Measurement, 77, 831-854, 2017; Trafimow & MacDonald in Educational and Psychological Measurement, 77, 204-219, 2017) to compute the articles' median levels of precision. Our findings indicate that developmental research performs best with respect to precision, whereas cognitive research performs the worst; however, none of the psychology subfields excelled. In addition, we found important differences in precision between journals in the upper versus lower echelons with respect to impact factors in cognitive, neuro-, and clinical psychology, whereas the difference was dramatically attenuated for social and developmental psychology. Implications are discussed.

Assessing Social Communication and Collaboration in Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Intelligent Collaborative Virtual Environments

Existing literature regarding social communication outcomes of interventions in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) depends upon human raters, with limited generalizability to real world settings. Technological innovation, particularly virtual reality (VR) and collaborative virtual environments (CVE), could offer a replicable, low cost measurement platform when endowed with intelligent agent technology and peer-based interactions. We developed and piloted a novel collaborative virtual environment and intelligent agent (CRETA) for the assessment of social communication and collaboration within system and peer interactions. The system classified user statements with moderate to high accuracies. We found moderate to high agreement in displayed communication and collaboration skills between human-human and human-agent interactions. CRETA offers a promising avenue for future development of autonomous measurement systems for ASD research.

Understanding Performance and Verbal-Communication of Children with ASD in a Collaborative Virtual Environment

Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs), which allow naturalistic communication between two or more individuals in a shared virtual environment, hold promise as a tool for measuring and promoting social communication between peers. In this work, a CVE platform and a set of CVE-based collaborative games are designed for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Two groups (7 ASD/TD pairs; 7 TD/TD pairs) participated in a pilot study to establish system feasibility and tolerability. We also designed a methodology for capturing meaningful metrics of social communication. Based on these metrics, we found improved game performance and trends in communication of these participants over time. Although preliminary, these results provide important insights on CVE-based interaction for ASD intervention.

Design and Evaluation of a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CoMove) for Autism Spectrum Disorder Intervention

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized in part by core deficits in social interaction and communication. A collaborative virtual environment (CVE), which is a computer-based, distributed, virtual space for multiple users to interact with one another and/or with virtual items, has the potential to support flexible, safe, and peer-based social interactions. In this article, we presented the design of a CVE system, called CoMove, with the ultimate goals of measuring and potentially enhancing collaborative interactions and verbal communication of children with ASD when they play collaborative puzzle games with their typically developing (TD) peers in remote locations. CoMove has two distinguishing characteristics: (i) the ability to promote important collaborative behaviors (including information sharing, sequential interactions, and simultaneous interactions) and to provide real-time feedback based on users’ game performance; as well as (ii) an objective way to measure and index important aspects of collaboration and verbal-communication skills during system interaction. A feasibility study with 14 pairs—7 ASD/TD pairs and 7 TD/TD pairs—was conducted to initially test the feasibility of CoMove. The results of the study validated the system feasibility and suggested its potential to index important aspects of collaboration and verbal communication.

Student researchers' perceived prerequisites for voluntary research collaboration in the context of Flemish and Chinese universities

While numerous papers have illuminated the worthiness of research collaboration, relatively few have addressed its prerequisites. In our study, seven prerequisites for research collaboration were extracted from the existing literature, and 460 student researchers were surveyed for their perceptions of the prerequisites’ importance. Focusing on voluntary research collaborations rather than brokered ones, it was found that socially oriented prerequisites such as reciprocal interactions, accountability, trust, and equality are perceived of more importance than prerequisites of psychical proximity, networking channels, and funds and material supplies (substance- and entity-related prerequisites). With latent regression analyses, we also found that Chinese and older, more experienced researchers are inclined to stress the importance of equality. Researchers of different cohorts prioritise substance- and entity-related prerequisites disparately. Specifically, Chinese researchers emphasise the necessity of funds, while researchers from first-tier universities place more value on networking channels. Disciplinary differences for the prerequisite of proximity were also discovered. Based on these results, discussion and implications were referred. Further suggestions on research collaboration studies are rendered.