Erica Hargreave

Bringing Stories to Life as a Speaker, & Digital & Immersive Media Strategist & Storyteller

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A Tale of Two Research Studies – Contradictory Evidence

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A recent assignment for my Master of Educational Technology in ETEC 500 – Research Methodologies in Education had me examining two contradictory research studies to explore how they could come up with such different findings. For me, this shone a spotlight on why it is so very important to teach media literacy, critical thinking, research skills, the scientific method and proper scientific inquiry (as oppose to science as rote learning, which too often happens), and data analysis.

Photo care of Pawel Czerwinski via Unsplash.
Photo care of Brett Jordan via Unsplash

In the media that we consume, we see a lot of articles and statements with bold claims that contradict each other. As a scientist, I am all too aware of how data can be manipulated to seemingly support one claim or another out of bias or at times for more nefarious reasons involving things like politics and finances. Since I have been studying educational technologies, one such topic of contradiction in research studies has been the impact of screen time on children. This is further aggravated by media outlets utilizing the research to create sensationalized headlines, often that misrepresents the data.

Recently I read one such article by Andrew Przybylski and Amy Orben in The Guardian, We’re told that too much screen time hurts our kids. Where’s the evidence? At the time of reading this, I found myself questioning the validity of the questions that were asked of the teens around their social media use, in the collection of data. I also found the title of the article to be misleading, as it mentions screen time use, yet the study focuses on social media use. While you are on your screen when using social media, screen time is a much broader topic to social media use.

My niece’s screen use for the day.

Pondering this article, made me think that perhaps we are missing the important questions here. Screen based technologies are becoming more and more an important part of our lives, and as such part of our schooling, so rather than the extreme viewpoints of ‘screen based technologies are our salvation’ or ‘screen based technologies breed evil’, the questions I wish to ask are around healthy use of those screen based technologies to find the balance both in the classroom and outside of it. While I work on screen based technologies and create both screen based stories and edtech, it is important to me that I do so in a way that is healthy for my audience and my students. I know that for myself, personally, too much of certain types of screen use gives me headaches and can make me feel anxious. Video games were like this for me as a kid, and as I had a slightly addictive nature with them, is why I now avoid them. I also know that when dealing with a concussion, I’ve had to be very careful with my screen time, as too much screen time aggravates the concussion symptoms. This is something that I wrote about in this article on Researching Optimal Screen Time Limits for Classroom Activities for Different Screen Based Activities.

Screens, screens, and more screens, whichever way you look.
Photo care of Constellate via Unsplash.

From the list of research studies that I compiled in the aforementioned article, I looked for two articles with bolder statements in their titles that appeared to contradict one another. The contradictory articles I selected were ‘Everything in Moderation: Moderate Use of Screens Unassociated with Child Behaviour Problems‘ by Christopher J Ferguson in Psychiatric Quarterly (December 2017) and ‘Screen Time is Associated with Depression and Anxiety in Canadian Youth‘ by Danijela Maras, Martine F. Flament, Nicole Obeid, Marisa Murray, Annick Buchholz, Katherine A. Henderson, and Gary Goldfield in Preventative Medicine (April 2015).

‘Everything in Moderation: Moderate Use of Screens Unassociated with Child Behaviour Problems’ by Christopher J Ferguson takes a representative correlational sample of youth from the State of Florida and assessed them for links between screen time and risky behavioral outcomes. Risky behavioral outcomes in terms of this study were classified as delinquency, risky behaviors, sexual behaviors, substance abuse, reduced grades or mental health problems. In reading this study and comparing it to Maras et al (2015)’s study, my interests were specifically in regards to correlations between screen time and mental health problems. The conclusions made in this study were that “use of screens that was moderately high, in excess of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ former recommendations of limiting screen time per day to 2 hours, but not excessive, was not associated with delinquency, risky behaviors, sexual behaviors, substance abuse, reduced grades or mental health problems. Even excessive screen use was only weakly associated with negative outcomes related to delinquency, grades and depression only, and at levels unlikely to be practically significant.”

Photo care of Tom Sodoge via Unsplash.

The research study ‘Screen Time is Associated with Depression and Anxiety in Canadian Youth’ by researchers Danijela Maras, Martine F. Flament, Nicole Obeid, Marisa Murray, Annick Buchholz, Katherine A. Henderson, and Gary Goldfield, “examined the relationships between screen time and symptoms of depression and anxiety in a large community sample of Ottawa youth.” The conclusions drawn from this study are that “screen time may represent a risk factor or marker of anxiety and depression in adolescents”, and that “future research is needed to determine if reducing screen time aids the prevention and treatment of these psychiatric disorders in youth.”

Similarities that exist in both studies include the age of youth – 12 -18 in Ferguson (2017) and 11 – 20 in Maras et al (2015), large sample sizes – 6089 in Ferguson (2017) and 2482 in Maras et al (2015), and school based parent and student opt-in surveys. Difference include the communities the studies were conducted in – Florida in Ferguson (2017) and Ottawa in Maras et al (2015), the types of questions asked on the surveys, different intent between the studies – examining risky behaviour in Ferguson (2017) and examining mental wellbeing in Maras et al (2015), and the delineation of the types of screen based activities in the screen based portion of the questionnaire.

A wee drama queen in my life, hamming it up for the camera, as she laments hitting her screen time limits for the day.

There are many things that could cause the different findings in these two studies. Included in this could be external social and cultural differences that were not measured in the two different communities in which the studies were conducted that might be impacting student responses, the difference in the questions posed in the two different communities, bias of the researchers impacting the interpretation of the data collected, and the different intent in designing the two different studies with the intent of Ferguson (2017) examining risky behaviours and the intent of Maras et al (2015) examining mental wellbeing. In examining the two studies, I suspect the most likely cause for the contradictory findings between the two studies with regards to collecting data around depression is in the questions asked in the surveys with regards to depression. In Ferguson (2017) the scale used consisted of three items related to depressive symptoms. An example of one item was “During the past 12 months, did you ever feel so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that you stopped doing some usual activities?” Whereas in (Maras et al, 2015) they used a pre-established and tested questionnaire, the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI), consisting of 27 items reflecting cognitive, affective, and behavioural signs of depression (Kovacs, 1992). Similarly for anxiety, they used the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children, which is a 10-item, self-reporting scale that is a short and efficient global measure of anxiety symptoms (March et al, 1999). Having spent the past 6-years having to fill out such surveys regularly during treatments, post two car accidents, depression is complex and multilayered and requires more than 3 questions to assess. Assessing depression as “During the past 12 months, did you ever feel so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that you stopped doing some usual activities?” is more of an extreme scenario, and misses many other indicators of depression.

As such, after examining these two studies, I am more apt to give the data in Maras et al (2015) more credence. The only way, however, to scientifically test whether the difference in the two reports were based on the manner in which depression is being tested is to replicate the studies in the different communities. Using Ferguson’s scale, what results would be found in Ottawa? Using Maras et al’s questionnaire, what results would be found in Florida?

Have you discovered contradictory studies in your research? What were the potential causes of this?

Works Cited

Ferguson, C. J. (2017). Everything in moderation: moderate use of screens unassociated with child behavior problems. Psychiatric quarterly, 88(4), 797-805.

Hargreave, E. (2019, July 26). Researching Optimal Screen Time Limits for Classroom Activities for Different Screen Based Activities [Web log post]. Retrieved August 16, 2019, from https://ericahargreave.com/2019/07/researching-optimal-screen-time-limits-for-classroom-activities-for-different-screen-based-activities/

Kovacs, M. (1992). Children’s depression inventory: Manual(p. Q8). North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-Health Systems.

Maras, D., Flament, M. F., Murray, M., Buchholz, A., Henderson, K. A., Obeid, N., & Goldfield, G. S. (2015). Screen time is associated with depression and anxiety in Canadian youth. Preventive, 73, 133-138.

March, J. S., Sullivan, K., & Parker, J. (1999). Test-retest reliability of the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children. Journal of anxiety disorders, 13(4), 349-358.

Przybylski, A., & Orben, A. (2019, July 7). We’re told that too much screen time hurts our kids. Where’s the evidence? The Guardian. Retrieved August 16, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/07/too-much-screen-time-hurts-kids-where-is-evidence?

Making Action Research a Part of Your Teaching Practice

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For me experimentation, listening, and adapting are all words that feature heavily in my teaching practices. Having for most of my career (in it’s many capacities from natural and cultural history interpreter, to community educator, grade school teacher, post-secondary school instructor, and international speaker), crafted and taught curriculum, workshops, and lessons that I have designed, these characteristics were just a natural and a given. Even when I am teaching young actors on film sets, and need to stick to the schoolwork that the child is missing at school, the environment of school on a film set allows me to adapt the schoolwork to teach it to the young person in a way that fits their needs and works for them. I never understood how important that ability to experiment, listen, and adapt was to me, until I was presented with a canned curriculum, tied to an enormous slide deck, and told to teach it. I was told I could adapt it and add in my experiences, but then got reprimanded if I strayed from any of the slides and added anything of my own in. This taught me two things – I don’t teach well to slides and I need to be able to experiment and adapt in order to feel comfortable in the classroom with what I am teaching.

French Assignment adapted to the Christmas Market
Giving relevancy to and making fun a French Conversation Assignment for school, that one young actor was dreading, by doing it en français and filming it with a vendor from France at the Vancouver Christmas Market.

In recent ETEC 500 readings for my Master of Educational Technology from Introduction to Educational Research: A Critical Thinking Approach by William Newton Suter, I have been reading about ‘Action Research’. It strikes me that action research is something that to a small degree, I have done intuitively in my teaching, and is what creates the difference in me being comfortable in what I am teaching, versus feeling completely out of sorts in the classrooms and not comfortable in what and how I am teaching.

What is Action Research? Action Research is Teacher Research. It is research conducted by teachers or educational practitioners with their students in the course of their practice. This is reflective teaching, in which you are asking what is working, where are there challenges, how can we overcome those challenges, do I need to be approaching an area of teaching in a different way, what happens if we do this instead … etc Generally in conducting action research in your classroom, you are solving a local problem or gathering information to make better decisions, like improving upon a lesson. The caution here though is that as this is looking to solve a local problem, it should be remembered that while what you learn might work for one group or area, it may not for another.

Photo care of NeONBRAND, via Unsplash

This caution comes from some of my own learning as of late. As I mentioned I have intuitively used action research in a small and informal manner to guide my teaching and speaking. In thinking upon my readings in Suter (2012), there are certainly ways that I can apply action research more formally in my teaching, but that is something I will delve into further on in this post. Informally, however, as a classroom teacher and community educator – no matter the age group – I have always started my courses with a series of activities designed to both allow me to learn about my students on a deeper level and to allow them to learn about each other. Taking the time to do this has always been important to me, as it is what allows me to adapt my teaching materials and approach to match the group of students, and to tie in examples, questions, and activities that will be meaningful to them. With my speaking, I do not have the luxury of time for activities to get to know everyone. Instead, I research examples and come up with ideas that fit my expected audience. This research helps, but there are often cultural differences in the places I speak, and to get a proper feel for these differences, and to craft the content to speak to that audience, I need interact with that audience. That is why the social events at conferences I am speaking at are so very important for me to attend.

A happy version of me, at the end of my second Swiss talk, which went well, due to some small level, intuitive, informal Action Research and Reflective Teaching.

I was reminded of that recently with some talks I gave in Switzerland. My first talk I gave felt flat, as I was not feeling comfortable with the audience and as such was sticking too closely to my slides and pre-written script. That night, I attended the social event, spoke with people, discovered some examples of people in the community doing some of the things I was talking about, clued into certain popular cultural references that the room was not familiar with, and better understood certain pre-misconceptions in the community that I was presenting to. This allowed me, when I presented the same talk the next day, to adapt – addressing the misconceptions and my approach to the subject matter from the beginning of the talk, briefly giving context to any pop culture examples that the audience might be unaware of, and seamlessly adding in examples of work that people in the community were doing. This created a different level of understanding and connection in the room, and comfort in me, to step away from my script and just use my slides as a guide to the general flow of my talk. In order to do this, I had to be willing to experiment, to listen (even to the things that were not positive), and to adapt based on the feedback. And of course, I needed to know the material well enough, to be able to do that with minimal time between when the feedback was given and when I applied it (some of which was mere moments before I walked on the stage for that second talk). But wow, does that ability to apply action research and reflective teaching, even on a small level, carry a powerful impact. For me, in the case of the Swiss talks, it meant I knew I had brought value to the conference, and even if I was not the happiest with my first talk, I knew I had listened, adapted, and responded with a second talk that I was proud of.

In looking at this with post-secondary teaching, this is part of the reason why it is so important to me to have the ability to change and adapt teaching materials between courses, and even within a course, adding in additional materials of interest, as well as adapting the previously built content. This is especially important to me in building courses online, where I know that students return to those materials to give themselves refreshers from time to time. While BCIT gives me the respect as the teacher, course developer, and subject matter expert to have the ability to update and adapt my courses, increasingly post-secondary schools are not allowing teachers to do this in online courses. That scares me, as it doesn’t give teachers the ability to adapt the courses they are teaching in response to their current students, or give teachers online the same respect for their knowledge that they are granted in the classroom.

Online teaching and online classrooms are in many ways well designed for action research, particularly in areas where using a quantitative approach to data collection. I can go into my previously taught courses, and in the stats built into the learning management system, I can see where student grades, activity, …etc dropped off.

Class Progress in BCST 1073
This shows the student progress in one of my BCST 1073 Classes. Unfortunately you cannot see the objectives or logins, as these are newer features that were added to this chart after the course was completed.

I can also look to see if student progress digressed at the same point in multiple years, or if it was specific to one class. And I can dig deeper and see if the drop off is in grades or activity in the course. Are there certain activities that the students are struggling with?

By studying and analyzing the quantitative stats of students behaviours in previous years, I can develop Action Research Questions to improve the course, my teaching, and the students’ experience. Questions I might ask myself from one of my BCIT course, BCST 1073 – Building Your Digital Presence, might include:

  • Am I trying to fit too much content and deliverables into the course and causing students to burn out?
  • Why are students typically skipping or performing poorly on the Niche Community Building activities?

The latter question, I will develop an Action Research Study around when I next teach the course in the Autumn. My current hypotheses with regards to this query, is that students do not understand how effective niche community building can be in building long term strategy in the online environment, so with their website building still top of mind, are not giving this Unit their full attention. There are other reasons, however, that the activities in this Unit may be done poorly or skipped. This Unit requires students to determine their ideal audience and community with a great deal of specificity, which many students find difficult, and this Unit requires students to reach out and engage with people they do not know online, which requires breaking down some fears. These are not easy things, and take practice to become comfortable with.

Photo by Tim Gouw, via Unsplash

In approaching this question in the upcoming course, I will gather quantitative data of past students’ performance on those activities, I will review and fine tune that Unit of the course to make sure that I am effectively articulating and demonstrating how effective niche community building can be in your digital strategy, and I will conduct a variety of surveys at the beginning and at the end of the Course to get students’ perceptions in what they value and deem important in both their digital presence and strategy. Finally at the beginning and at the end of the Unit on Niche Community Building, I will include a questionnaire or quiz to ascertain how student understanding of niche community building has changed in the course of the Unit, and where any misunderstanding and challenges might exist in applying the principles being taught.

At the end of the Autumn Course, I will then analyze the data I collect, and make my conclusions accordingly in what I might need to further do to strengthen the Niche Community Building Unit in further offerings of the course.

Data has a better idea.
Photo by Franki Chamaki, via Unsplash

I can see the process of observing, questioning and reflecting upon my courses and student experience within them, to be a useful process for improving further upon my teachings. Approaching action research in a more deliberate manner as a teacher and a scholar-practitioner is something I wish to make a regular part of my practice.

I’d love to hear your experiences as a scholar-practitioner in conducting action research. Do you have tips you wish to share in approaching action research or stories of the successes and challenges that you have had?

Works Cited

Suter, W. N. (2012). Introduction to educational research: A critical thinking approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Researching Optimal Screen Time Limits for Classroom Activities for Different Screen Based Activities

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As a part of ETEC 500: Research Methodology in Education for my Master of Educational Teachnology, I was asked to experiment with using a citation manager to compile a list of research studies that are relevant to my research area of interest.

Research Areas of Interest of Erica Hargreave in July of 2019.
My Erica Hargreave’s Research Areas of Interest in July 2019

For those of you that read my post entitled ‘An Introduction to ETEC 500: Research Methodology in Education, and my Current Research Interests‘, you will remember that my research areas of interest are many and are quite broad. As such I decided to define my search to address an area that has been concerning me from a design perspective around an upcoming educational storytelling piece that my team and I at Ahimsa Media are developing. To explore history immersively around World War II, both in places where history took place and to take that back into classrooms, we are looking at educational technology solutions in AR and VR. As these will create better learning experiences if the users are comfortable in the space, I have been concerned over VR motion sickness and have been attending talks for over a year now, including medical ones, asking questions with regards to ideal times spent in these virtual spaces to limit the likelihood of negative health impacts on the user, like VR motion sickness. Subjectively with the sample size of me, along with anecdotal conversations I have had with people working with virtual reality, it would seem that elements like higher quality filming and the comfort and ease of use of the headset all help in limiting VR motion sickness. But in terms of optimal time limits in the virtual space to limit the impact of those experiences on users and how this differs between age groups and people with different health issues, due to how quickly virtual reality technology has been changing researcher and practitioners still do not have any significant data on this. While this is something that I am continuing to keep a close eye on, so that when creating our storytelling pieces we are creating pieces that are comfortable for the user, it did bring up broader questions for me about screen time in education.

Children in Virtual Reality
Photo care of the stem.T4L project, via Unsplash. 

Often what we read in the media, with regards to screen time and youth, are extreme pieces of woe, warning people of screen time perils, or the polar opposite of that, presenting the warnings as the subjective ramblings of people afraid of technological advancements. My own personal believes, from my own experiences of at times excessive screen use, is everything in moderation. Screen based technologies are a part of our lives now, and they come with both positive and negative outcomes. As educators, I feel that one of our roles now is to teach healthy use of those screen based technologies – whether our student is 3 years old, a twenty-something, or over the age of seventy. In order to do that, we also need to gain understanding of optimal screen times for different screen based activities ourselves – whether working on the computer, gaming, watching a video, experiencing a virtual environment …etc. As a classroom teacher, how should I break up the day / activities, so as to not cause adverse health impacts on my students and to teach them to diversify their activities to break up their screen time? What if the classes are intensives on working with screen based technologies – how do I keep student wellbeing top of mind, and teach them healthy screen time skills at the same time? In my case, many of my classes are online, so are entirely screen based – are there ways that I can help remind my students to take digital breaks within that?

Child gaming.
Photograph by Alex Haney, via Unsplash.

These many questions, lead to the query for my research investigation, which is on the ‘Optimal Screen Time Limits for Classroom Activities for Different Screen Based Activities’. As you will see below, most of the research studies I found were driven by health professionals, rather than educators. To focus my findings, I excluded studies that were focused on obesity or violence. A lot of research studies I compiled explore screen time and health and wellbeing, as you will see from the screen shot of the research list that I compiled in Mendeley (the citation manager that I chose to use).

A small tease to the research I have been compiling into optimal screen times.

102 papers is A LOT, so I organized the research findings into a number of folders, and focused on the ones that I thought most likely to show evidence of optimal screen times before we spark adverse symptoms in our students from too much screen time. Below is the reference list of research studies, that will hopefully help to answer my query of ‘Optimal Screen Time Limits for Classroom Activities for Different Screen Based Activities’.

>> Reference List of Research Studies for Investigating Optimal Screen Time Limits for Classroom Activities as Created by Erica HargreaveDownload

REFERENCE LIST (compiled by Erica Hargreave)

Exploring Query on:

Optimal Screen Time Limits for Classroom Activities for Different Screen Based Activities

Screen time and young children: Promoting health and development in a digital world. (2018). Paediatrics & Child Health, 23(1), 83–83. https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxx197

Atkin, A. J., Sharp, S. J., Corder, K., & Van Sluijs, E. M. F. (2014). Prevalence and correlates of screen time in youth: An international perspective. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2014.07.043

Babic, M. J., Morgan, P. J., Plotnikoff, R. C., Lonsdale, C., Eather, N., Skinner, G., … Lubans, D. R. (2015). Rationale and study protocol for “Switch-off 4 Healthy Minds” (S4HM): A cluster randomized controlled trial to reduce recreational screen time in adolescents. Contemporary Clinical Trials. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cct.2014.12.001

Babic, M. J., Smith, J. J., Morgan, P. J., Eather, N., Plotnikoff, R. C., & Lubans, D. R. (2017). Longitudinal associations between changes in screen-time and mental health outcomes in adolescents. Mental Health and Physical Activity. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mhpa.2017.04.001

Babic, M. J., Smith, J. J., Morgan, P. J., Lonsdale, C., Plotnikoff, R. C., Eather, N., … Lubans, D. R. (2016). Intervention to reduce recreational screen-time in adolescents: Outcomes and mediators from the ‘Switch-Off 4 Healthy Minds’ (S4HM) cluster randomized controlled trial. Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2016.07.014

Blinka, L., Ška?upová, K., Šev?íková, A., Wölfling, K., Müller, K. W., & Dreier, M. (2014). Excessive internet use in European adolescents: What determines differences in severity? International Journal of Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-014-0635-x

Brindova, D., Pavelka, J., Šev?ikova, A., Žežula, I., van Dijk, J. P., Reijneveld, S. A., … Madarasova Geckova, A. (2014). How parents can affect excessive spending of time on screen-based activities. BMC Public Health, 14(1), 1261. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1261

Brindova, D., Veselska, Z. D., Klein, D., Hamrik, Z., Sigmundova, D., van Dijk, J. P., … Geckova, A. M. (2014). Is the association between screen-based behaviour and health complaints among adolescents moderated by physical activity? International Journal of Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-014-0627-x

Busch, V., Manders, L. A., & De Leeuw, J. R. J. (2013). Screen time associated with health behaviors and outcomes in adolescents. American Journal of Health Behavior. https://doi.org/10.5993/AJHB.37.6.11

Domingues-Montanari, S. (2017). Clinical and psychological effects of excessive screen time on children. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.13462

Duch, H., Fisher, E. M., Ensari, I., & Harrington, A. Screen time use in children under 3 years old: A systematic review of correlates. , 10 § (2013).

Ferguson, C. J. (2017). Everything in Moderation: Moderate Use of Screens Unassociated with Child Behavior Problems. Psychiatric Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-016-9486-3

Fitzpatrick, C., Burkhalter, R., & Asbridge, M. (2019). Adolescent media use and its association to wellbeing in a Canadian national sample. Preventive Medicine Reports. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2019.100867

Friedrich, R. R., Polet, J. P., Schuch, I., & Wagner, M. B. (2014). Effect of intervention programs in schools to reduce screen time: A meta-analysis. Jornal de Pediatria. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jped.2014.01.003

Grøntved, A., Singhammer, J., Froberg, K., Møller, N. C., Pan, A., Pfeiffer, K. A., & Kristensen, P. L. (2015). A prospective study of screen time in adolescence and depression symptoms in young adulthood. Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.08.009

Guernsey, L. (n.d.). Into The Minds Of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children From Birth To Age Five. Retrieved from www.naeyc.org

Hamer, M., Stamatakis, E., & Mishra, G. D. (2010). Television- and Screen-Based Activity and Mental Well-Being in Adults. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2009.12.030

Herman, K. M., Hopman, W. M., & Sabiston, C. M. (2015). Physical activity, screen time and self-rated health and mental health in Canadian adolescents. Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.01.030

Hinkley, T., Salmon, J., Okely, A. D., & Crawford, D. (2013). The correlates of preschoolers’ compliance with screen recommendations exist across multiple domains. Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2013.05.020

Iannotti, R. J., Kogan, M. D., Janssen, I., & Boyce, W. F. (2009). Patterns of Adolescent Physical Activity, Screen-Based Media Use, and Positive and Negative Health Indicators in the U.S. and Canada. Journal of Adolescent Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2008.10.142

Jongenelis, M. I., Scully, M., Morley, B., Pratt, I. S., & Slevin, T. (2018). Physical activity and screen-based recreation: Prevalences and trends over time among adolescents and barriers to recommended engagement. Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2017.10.006

Keane, E., Kelly, C., Molcho, M., & Nic Gabhainn, S. (2017). Physical activity, screen time and the risk of subjective health complaints in school-aged children. Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2016.12.011

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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2013.03.012

Lissak, G. (2018). Adverse physiological and psychological effects of screen time on children and adolescents: Literature review and case study. Environmental Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2018.01.015

Madhav, K. C., Sherchand, S. P., & Sherchan, S. (2017). Association between screen time and depression among US adults. Preventive Medicine Reports. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2017.08.005

Maniccia, D. M., Davison, K. K., Marshall, S. J., Manganello, J. A., & Dennison, B. A. (2011). A Meta-analysis of Interventions That Target Children’s Screen Time for Reduction. PEDIATRICS. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2010-2353

Maras, D., Flament, M. F., Murray, M., Buchholz, A., Henderson, K. A., Obeid, N., & Goldfield, G. S. (2015). Screen time is associated with depression and anxiety in Canadian youth. Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.01.029

Marques, A., Calmeiro, L., Loureiro, N., Frasquilho, D., & de Matos, M. G. (2015). Health complaints among adolescents: Associations with more screen-based behaviours and less physical activity. Journal of Adolescence. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.07.018

Martin, K. (2011). Electronic Overload: The Impact of Excessive Screen Use on Child and Adolescent Health and Wellbeing.

Ponti, M. (2019). Digital media: Promoting healthy screen use in school-aged children and adolescents. Retrieved from Canadian Paediatric Society website:  https://www.cps.ca/en/documents/position/digital-media

Ponti, M., Bélanger, S., Grimes, R., Heard, J., Johnson, M., Moreau, E., … Williams, R. (2017). Screen time and young children: Promoting health and development in a digital world. Paediatrics & Child Health, 22(8), 461–468. https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxx123

Przybylski, A. K., & Weinstein, N. (2017). A Large-Scale Test of the Goldilocks Hypothesis: Quantifying the Relations Between Digital-Screen Use and the Mental Well-Being of Adolescents. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797616678438

Przybylski, A. K., & Weinstein, N. (2019). Digital Screen Time Limits and Young Children’s Psychological Well-Being: Evidence From a Population-Based Study. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13007

Ralph, R., & Petrina, S. (2018). Social Learning with Mobile Devices in Preschool Classrooms. European Journal of STEM Education, 3(3). https://doi:10.20897/ejsteme/3872

Radesky, J. S., Schumacher, J., & Zuckerman, B. (2014). Mobile and interactive media use by young children: The good, the bad and the unknown | EurekAlert! Science News. Pediatrics. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2014-2251

Ramirez, E. R., Norman, G. J., Rosenberg, D. E., Kerr, J., Saelens, B. E., Durant, N., & Sallis, J. F. (2011). Adolescent screen time and rules to limit screen time in the home. Journal of Adolescent Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2010.07.013

Ramsey Buchanan, L., Rooks-Peck, C. R., Finnie, R. K. C., Wethington, H. R., Jacob, V., Fulton, J. E., … Glanz, K. (2016). Reducing Recreational Sedentary Screen Time: A Community Guide Systematic Review. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2015.09.030

Saunders, T. J., & Vallance, J. K. (2017). Screen Time and Health Indicators Among Children and Youth: Current Evidence, Limitations and Future Directions. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40258-016-0289-3

Schaan, C. W., Cureau, F. V., Sbaraini, M., Sparrenberger, K., Kohl, H. W., & Schaan, B. D. (2019). Prevalence of excessive screen time and TV viewing among Brazilian adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Jornal de Pediatria. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jped.2018.04.011

Shiue, I. (2015). Duration of daily TV/screen watching with cardiovascular, respiratory, mental and psychiatric health: Scottish Health Survey, 2012-2013. International Journal of Cardiology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2015.03.259

Smith, L., Louw, Q., Crous, L., & Grimmer-Somers, K. (2009). Prevalence of neck pain and headaches: Impact of computer use and other associative factors. Cephalalgia. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2982.2008.01714.x

Swartz, M. K. (2017). Taking Another Look at Screen Time for Young Children. Journal of Pediatric Health Care. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedhc.2017.01.006

Taehtinen, R. E., Sigfusdottir, I. D., Helgason, A. R., & Kristjansson, A. L. (2014). Electronic screen use and selected somatic symptoms in 10-12 year old children. Preventive Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.07.017

Torsheim, T., Eriksson, L., Schnohr, C. W., Hansen, F., Bjarnason, T., & Välimaa, R. (2010). Screen-based activities and physical complaints among adolescents from the Nordic countries. BMC Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-324

Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population- based study. Preventive Medicine Reports. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.10.003

Wahi, G., Parkin, P. C., Beyene, J., Uleryk, E. M., & Birken, C. S. (2011). Effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing screen time in children: A systematic review and meta- analysis of randomized controlled trials. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.122

Wang, C., Li, K., Kim, M., Lee, S., & Seo, D. C. (2019). Association between psychological distress and elevated use of electronic devices among U.S. adolescents: Results from the youth risk behavior surveillance 2009-2017. Addictive Behaviors. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2018.10.037

Zhao, J., Zhang, Y., Jiang, F., Ip, P., Ho, F. K. W., Zhang, Y., & Huang, H. (2018). Excessive Screen Time and Psychosocial Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Body Mass Index, Sleep Duration, and Parent-Child Interaction. Journal of Pediatrics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2018.06.029

Zink, J., Belcher, B. R., Kechter, A., Stone, M. D., & Leventhal, A. M. (2019). Reciprocal associations between screen time and emotional disorder symptoms during adolescence. Preventive Medicine Reports. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2019.01.014

If you have a research study that you think I should add to this list, please add it in the comments below. I would also love to hear in the comments below, if you have ways to maintain healthy screen time limits, either in your classroom or within your life and work.

Oh, and if you would like any of the lists of research studies that I have begun to compiled please shoot me an email via my ‘Contact Page‘.

An Introduction to ETEC 500: Research Methodology in Education, and my Current Research Interests

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I am busy at the moment working on a Master of Educational Technology (MET) at UBC, with a focus towards using what I learn through this Master’s towards our team’s storytelling, my speaking, and the teaching I do – both online and offline. With this there are four core courses to the Master’s:

  • ETEC 500: Research Methodology in Education
  • ETEC 510: Design of Technology-Supported Learning Environments
  • ETEC 511: Foundations of Educational Technology
  • ETEC 512: Applications of Learning Theories to Instruction
Master of Educational Technology at UBC

Over the next few weeks, I will be blogging here about my thoughts and reflections with regards to the various things that I am learning about as I work through the ETEC 500 course content.

My hopes for this course?

writing
Photo care of fotografierende, via Unsplash.

Ultimately, I am hoping ETEC 500 helps me to better organize my thoughts and academic writing for the ETEC 580 projects that I intend to do throughout my MET Program. Also I am hoping that it will be a good reminder to me of what is expected in terms of academic writing.

The latter is also a fear of mine, as the reason I was able to figure out how utilize the digital sphere to tell stories in different ways, allowing the community to feel a part of those stories and create storyworlds, is that I let go of the conventional rules of mainstream media and approached the space in a creatively scientific manner. This meant following my intuition, whilst constantly experimenting and applying the scientific method to the things my team and I try. As I write this, I think, maybe I don’t need to be so worried about that in a course that explores research, but then the reason why I do is that my perception of academic writing has always been one of formality and rigid rules, even though when I look at it, it is research and scientific inquiry that has allowed my creative career to blossom. Something to mull over, I guess, as dive further into this course.

Research Interests

One of the first things we’ve been asked to do in this course, is to create a concept map to explore research areas of interest to us. I first did this a year ago, before I had to hit pause on the course due to a concussion.

In looking back, here were my research interests a year ago:

Research Interests in June of 2018

The process of creating this concept map and thinking about it, very much helped me solidify the directions of my research interests, and encouraged me to act on them to further my team’s work with StoryToGo and our web series, to start speaking more internationally again, and to ease back into my Master’s course work through ETEC 580 projects.

Sustainable Funding Research

In looking at this, I decided to start with ‘exploring different funding models, ideally that would allow content to reach communities world wide and be free to watch and utilize in the classroom.’ The question of sustainable funding is an important one for myself and my team at Ahimsa Media in funding our web series and other educational storytelling projects. It is also an area that we hope to be able to demonstrate to our media students at BCIT, as well as the broader storytelling community, that there is an alternative to the coveted broadcast contract, and that broadcast contracts are not a mark of merit or success for your ideas and creations. There are alternatives to creating and to financial success in creating.

Given that I decided to focus my first ETEC 580 project on ‘Sustainable Funding Models for Free and Open Educational Resources and Educational Based Storytelling Projects’ and interview a number of educational based storytelling creators on the funding models behind their projects. With this, as I was already going to be in Europe in April to speak in Switzerland, I pitched 4 talks to the OER19 Conference in Galway, Ireland to use as a deadline for getting much of this research done. In pitching these talks, as I like working with others, I invited both my colleague Lori Yearwood and my past BCIT student and fellow MET student Mary McDonald to be a part of the talks and the research with me. All four talks were accepted, but due to scheduling difficulties we only ended up giving 3 of the talks:

Our workshop at 0ER19, on Finding Funding and Building Sustainability Around Arts and Environmental Storytelling.
Mary and I presenting our workshop on ‘Finding Funding and Building Sustainability Around Arts and Environmental Storytelling’.

OER19 was a great experience, and we greatly benefited from the advice that our ETEC 580 Supervisor and eCampus Ontario CEO David Porter gave us into the various groups of thought in the open education community. While this conference introduced us to the interesting and creative work that people from around the world are doing in education, and more specifically around open education, the most beneficial part for me was meeting the people there, and beginning to build relationships with people whose work I now follow. Many of those individuals I have David Porter and MET Alumna and Faculty-wide Programs Instructional Specialist Yvonne Dawydiak to thank for introducing us to leading up to the conference (and the fact that MET Alumna Danielle Dubien decided to become our conference wing woman, certainly did not hurt either).

Participants at OER19 in Galway, Ireland.
Just a few of the many wonderful characters at OER19 in Galway, Ireland.

We’ve really enjoyed the research and interviews we’ve done as a part of this ETEC 580 project, and as one of Lori’s and my goals with StoryToGo has been to provide useful case studies for other storytellers and educators, we will likely continue to add to these case studies over time. Recently, we have designed a new site for StoryToGo to house these case studies on sustainable funding, and Mary has posted the first four case studies based on interviews she conducted. In the coming weeks, you will find additional case studies on the site, from interviews that Lori and I conducted, and we will be releasing the interviews themselves, vlogcast-style to a new YouTube Channel that we are building for StoryToGo.

StoryToGo.ca
StoryToGo.ca, sporting it’s new party dress.

From this research, we also identified a problem within the Open Educational Community, that we pitched and has been accepted to the OE Global 2019 Conference. The action lab that we pitch is Lori’s idea and is entitled ‘Drawing Eyes and Building Awareness Around OERs’. You can read the abstract below:

While the Open Educational Resource (OER) community does a wonderful job of engaging with one another online, open educational resources are difficult to find, much of the conversation and resource building is limited to academia, and the broader educational and content creation communities are unaware of OERs and the OER community. For OERS to become more mainstream, we need to engage educators and content creators beyond academia in the conversation.  We need to stop limiting our conversation to educational silos defined by what type of institution or organization that we work within. In addition, we need to make OERs easier to find. While there are some wonderful initiatives happening to aggregate and spread OER content, like the OER World Map and Open Education Week, we need to look at ways to increase the conversation around OERs in an ongoing manner throughout the year, in conversations with the broader educational and content creation communities. By improving the visibility to platforms that are aggregating OERs and broadening the conversation around OERs into expanding network of educators, we make OERs easier to find, and hopefully encourage a broader group of educators and content creators to contribute OERs to OER aggregators.

Our goal in this session is to come together to start planning ways to bring OERs into broader conversations amongst educators and content creators.

XR (VR, AR, MR) Research

Virtual Reality - Image care of Samuel Zellar, via Unsplash.
Image care of Samuel Zellar, via Unsplash.

As I have been working on the above research, I have also been slowly easing into my next ETEC 580, which I am using to help answer questions and design our approach on how best to structure some educational storytelling pieces around World War II that will help to better connect school children with the DDay Landings at Juno Beach and the Normandy Campaign. We’ve been looking to AR, VR, and web series to find creative solutions for this, with artifacts designed for family audiences that we could leave throughout the Maple Leaf Trails in Normandy, as well as storytelling pieces that could transport Canadian school children from their classrooms through time and space to Normandy, both in present day and to the Spring / Summer of 1944. In approaching this, I have begun by gently (given the concussion) immersing myself in and exploring XR (AR, VR, and MR). Part of this was attending last summer’s MET Summer Institute, EDUC 490V: VR Viewpoints on a New Medium and various XR events in the community when possible, focusing some of our ETEC 580 Sustainable Funding interviews on educational XR projects, doing some on the ground research in Normandy (in between talks in Ireland and Switzerland), and using our travel journalism work to explore a few educational XR experiences (to see what we like and don’t like about some of things that currently exist, and use those experiences to help to further shape the direction of the AR and VR experiences that we are looking to create).

Testing out the Mixed Reality Experience at Tremona-Castello Archaeological Park in Ticino, Switzerland.
Testing out the Mixed Reality Experience at Tremona-Castello Archaeological Park in Ticino, Switzerland.

Now, as I mentioned above, it helps my team and I in our work to create deadlines, usually in the form of something public that we are working towards. Thus, I also pitched and had accepted a research talk at the OE Global 2019 Conference on the XR research I have been doing around educational and storytelling XR projects. The talk is entitled ‘Challenges and Solutions to Creating Accessible OERs with AR, VR, and MR’. You can read the abstract below:

Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) are exciting technologies to explore in finding new ways to bring history, stories, science and the arts to life in a way that entertains, engages and ultimately educates students.  While newer and sexier, these technologies are not the solution to every project. You must first ask yourself why AR, VR or MR?  What problem would these technologies solve for you? Would another medium be more effective in reaching your goals?  If AR, VR, or MR is the right fit for your project, then what are the AR, VR, or MR challenges  in addressing the needs of your project – looking at everything from connectivity, to ease of use, to comfort, to hardware, to funding …etc?  

To aid in answering these questions, we explore case studies from a number of organizations, around the world, using AR, VR, and MR as educational solutions.  In the process we will examine the challenges and successes that they have had with these technologies.  Additionally, we will explore their decisions in making their creations open, free, or restricted, and why.

My plan is to use presenting this research as Stage 1 for my next ETEC 580 project, with Stage 2 being to properly write up our own AR and VR solutions for the WWII project for grant applications.

In re-approaching this course, a year later, I decided to create a fresh concept map on my research interests, in order to reflect on where I am at with all of this at the moment. You can see my current research interests below:

Research Interests in July 2019.
Research Interests in July 2019.

Thanks for joining me on this journey into research methodologies in education and research for the sake of my own interests. Please share any thoughts or research interests of your own that you may have, in the comments below.