Fifteen Eighty Four

I got my first mobile phone when I was 18 years old. Internet at my time still made this annoying sound trying to connect from the phoneline, that somebody else needed every time you were doing something very very but very important for 16-year-old me at the time.

Technology has evolved incredibly rapidly since, research is desperately trying to catch up behind it, but it is not moving just as fast.  In my job as a lecturer, it has been a couple years now when I sit down to mark essay questions and I get the sensation that I have read this same answer over and over again. On occasions, with some minor attempts of originality and creativity, otherwise just the same. With no policy in place, with no proper software to back up my suspicion, most of the answers got a very high score. These are correct, accurate, and well written beautiful answers.   Due to a lack of policy, students were not incurring in academic misconduct, even though technically they were. This was not their original work, so where and how do you draw the line? I am sure I am not the only one trying to navigate a world that is rapidly changing and, at times, still new and unknown.

Technology is fantastic! It is interesting, adaptable, responding to needs, facilitating life, solving problems for people. Technology can also not be as good for example facilitating online bullying and discrimination online. How to maximise the good aspects of technology to ensure its use is beneficial and ethical? I am sure again, that I am not alone in my wondering process.  

Technology can be an incredible tool for research and this is what this book is about. Maximising the potential of technology as a platform, as a research method, as a vehicle to guide, underpin and support the generation of new knowledge in a controlled and safe environment for all involved.

The advancements of technology in the field of health are undeniable, developing software, gadgets, programmes apps and other tools to monitor chronic health conditions. All of which can empower people experiencing challenging health problems and diagnoses, as well as learn more about these conditions and the functioning of the human body overall. This is of course a way to generate different types of data to inform ground- breaking and even life changing discoveries.

We are living in an era where children and young people have been born into technology, grow up with it and is an intrinsic part of their lives. I am sure they have something to say about it. Participatory methods are a tool which enables their voice to be captured, amplified, respected and shared. Adolescents are also experts in their own health, and I understand health from its most comprehensive approach with encompasses physical health, mental health and all the complexity of their context and environments that hinder or promote their own quality of life, health and well-being. Yes, it is complex, so much more interesting as well.

I have been a mixed methods researcher, with a special interest in researching children and young people’s lives. I have experience in working with children and adolescents either having chronic illness themselves or adjusting to a diagnosis of a family member which generated a significant number of drastic changes and challenges in their lives.

My more “technical side” began simply using data analysis software. I had the interest and the ability to learn quickly to navigate these tools and eventually it opened my eyes to more programmes, more software, more tools. In synthesis, more and more options that I could use to produce interesting outcomes, graphics and ways to use, analyse and present data (I was fascinated!). Combined with a psychology background, the human aspects of technology are always at the forefront of my practice and thinking. Therefore, the book has a strong focus on ethical behaviour around technology-based research, ensuring the safety and wellbeing of participants, particularly those who are underaged, vulnerable and often excluded or unheard from society, from research and from policy.

Technological Innovations in Participatory Health Research with Adolescents is an account of a combination of elements: participatory methods, health research and adolescents. All of the areas I have enjoyed over the years, which I now advocate for and therefore felt passionately about sharing the experience with others. A book directed therefore at a far-ranging variety of audiences, widely interested in any of these areas and tenacious enough to “give it a go” at how they could potentially be combined. Trust me, it is a good idea!  Not an idea I have created on my own, it is an evidence-based tool including theory and examples of how these concepts have worked in practice.  Successfully (or not!), always an opportunity to learn from, all of which I am sharing in this book.

Title: Technological Innovations in Participatory Health Research with Adolescents

Author: Leonor Rodriguez-Estrada

ISNB: 9781009450478