Ella
Davenport, an undergraduate Psychology student at The University of Sheffield,
recently completed a summer vacation scholarship working within CATCH on the
AcTo Dementia project. This scholarship was organised by Think Ahead SURE(Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience) and funded by the EPSRC(Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council). In this article, Ella
discusses her experience joining the research team and working on this project.
After reaching my second year of
university, and still unsure as to what career path I wanted to pursue, the
Think Ahead SURE scheme offered me the opportunity to gain valuable research
experience. Following an application process, I was lucky enough to be selected
to work with Phil Joddrell on the AcTo dementia project. The project includes a
website, which suggests apps that are accessible for people with dementia and
which they may enjoy playing. In order to identify such apps, a review criteria
has been developed to evaluate the appropriateness of the apps, based on their
customisation options and presence of advertisements among others things.
The objective of my placement was to
identify at least 20 apps using this review criteria and write reviews for each
of these, to be published on the AcTo Dementia website. These apps included
both classic games, such as Chess and Hangman (pictured), as well as novel
games including 1010 (pictured) and Stack Box. When writing the reviews, I
included the pros and cons of each app and the recommended settings; for
example, whether the user would be able to change the background colour and if this
would improve the contrast and clarity of the game. In addition to identifying
games people may enjoy, I also looked into other types of downloadable apps,
such as those focused on music and cookery, to provide more variety for people
visiting the website.
Alongside using the review criteria,
I have also been evaluating its reliability. I have looked at the inter-rater
reliability between the many people who have used these criteria, generally
finding values of above 0.8, which are considered very respectable. The end of the scheme is marked by a
conference style, academic presentation for other students on the Think Ahead
SURE scheme. This will be good experience, as I feel this summer has furthered
my interest in postgraduate study, which would require me to deliver
presentations in this style, and answer questions on the spot.
Written by Ella Davenport
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