School Dropout in Developing Countries: The Case of Indigenous Communities in Guatemala
Qualitative Semi-structured interviews Thematic Analyses
Education is a basic right which any person should have the opportunity to access. However, around 120 million children worldwide are as yet uneducated. A qualitative study was conducted in an indigenous community in rural Guatemala in order to identify the key factors that discourage students to continue from primary to secondary school education. The participants of the study were divided into two groups depending on whether they were students, parents of students or teachers at the rural school. Results suggested that factors of different natures (structural, political and cultural) overlap each other. The factors related to school dropout were related to demography, health, lack of economic resources and Government support, lack of social support and lack of intrinsic motivation to graduate from formal education. In contrast, protection factors to remain at school were related to future aspirations and social mobility, parental support and economic support.
Data Collection Data was collected using qualitative, semi-structured interviews to facilitate the discovery of new conceptual and theoretical knowledge (Power & Alison, 2017) about the factors that take place in the process regarding the decision of remaining or disengaging from education. This method has been used regularly by researchers who seek to generate an understanding of real-world psychology (Crandall, Klein, & Hoffman, 2006; Klein & Militello, 2004). The interview sought to achieve a better understanding of the reality that the people interviewed are living through analysing their personal experience. The researcher who conducted these interviews spent 2 weeks prior to data collection immersing herself in the work environment of the school in the rural area of Guatemala, reading previous literature on the topic, attending school and classes with the children and interacting with teachers, students and families in order to establish a working relationship with each group. Procedure Each interview lasted approximately half an hour, depending on the participants will, in order to prevent participant exhaustion (M = 35). The interview stopped if the participant was perceived to be uncomfortable. Participants were sat in a quiet location and interviewed on a mobile phone. Interviews were semi-structured and included topics such as the characteristic of the educational system, the practices and processes that appear as determinants of the decision for permanently remaining or disengaging from the formal educational process, and personal situations or of the people that the participants knew. Interviews were transferred to a computer and anonymously transcribed, with all identifiable details (e.g., names, locations) removed, for its analysis. Thematic analysis was conducted in order to understand the subjective experience of the participants as the paramount object of the study throughout the organization and reach description of the data set. Data Analyses Analyses conducted in the interpretation of the results were thematic analysis, as through its theoretical freedom, it provides a flexible and useful research tool, which can potentially provide a rich and detailed, yet complex, account of data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Preliminary analyses were conducted of the notes that were taken during the interview immediately following each one of them. This was to develop an early understanding of the types of challenges identified by participants (Power & Alison, 2017). Analyses continued during interview transcription by keeping notes on the key themes that emerged during transcription. After the transcription of the interviews, thematic analyses were conducted on the data using NVIVO. Thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data, minimally organising and describing the data set in (rich) detail (Braun & Clarke, 2006). According to Braun and Clarke (2006), thematic analyses involved six phases: (a) familiarization with the data through transcription and rereading of the text; (b) generation of initial codes across the data set; (c) collation of codes into themes that captured something important of the data in relation of the research question, and represents some level of patterned within the data set; (d) revision of themes and refinement of categories; (e) definition and naming of themes of the overall story that the data tells; and (f) production of a detailed scholarly report of analyses. Following the example of Power and Alison (2017), it is important to mention that the themes were not quantified. The reasons for this was that the interview style was semi-structured, meaning that not all participants were asked the same questions as prompts were used to probe discussion rather than lead it (i.e., just because the participant did not perceive lack of parental support as an issue in their description of the situations that may lead to students to disengage school, it does not mean that they do not perceive it as a helping factor to remain. Analyses were conducted by the primary researcher, who discussed coding with her supervisor to reach mutual agreement and consensus.
Seeing helps our hearing: How the visual system plays a role in speech perception
Difficult listening conditions can result in a decrease in our ability to successfully discriminate speech. In these conditions, the visual system assists with speech perception through lipreading. Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) is used to investigate the interaction between the two senses in speech perception. Due to widely stimulus dependent effects, the exact timings for how far one stream can be asynchronized against the other drastically differs from account to account. Previous research has not considered viseme categories to ensure that selected speech phonemes are visually distinct. This study aims to create and validate a set of audiovisual stimuli that considers these variables for examining speech-in-noise, and to determine the SOA integration period for these stimuli. 27 online participants would be presented with either audio-only stimuli of a speaker speaking or audiovisual stimuli that also contained visuals of the speaker’s lip and mouth area as the speech were spoken. The speech was either clear or in-noise, and either displayed no stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) or had SOA introduced at one of five different levels (200ms, 216.6ms, 233.3ms, 250ms, 266.6ms). Results indicate that, whilst the effect of visual information assisting with speech-in-noise is apparent, it is weaker of an effect than previous literature. Whilst response times imply that 250ms marks the integration window period for our stimuli, no significant accuracy changes corroborate this finding. In all, the study was successful in creating a more valid set of stimuli for testing. As power sufficiency was not met, more testing would be required to firmly cement the findings.
connection, allowing for a direct, uninterrupted video feed at 1920x1080 resolution and 60 frames per second. The camera was mounted onto a stable tripod to reduce movement of the camera as much as possible during recording. DroidCam X software was used to aid the streaming of the video in real-time with little compression and loss whilst still retaining a 1080p@60fps quality level. OBS software was used for recording as it allowed the audio from the external microphone and the video from the camera to be encoded together in real-time as a single MKV file. This was beneficial, as it removed potential human error that can occur when manually stitching audio files and video files together. Therefore, we can be certain that there were no asynchronous anomalies between the audio and video streams during encoding. Another benefit of OBS software is that it reports how many frames of video are dropped when recording and encoding an MKV file, which was important to ensure that the home desktop was encoding the video in its entirely akin to a lab-calibrated desktop. No frames were reported to be dropped for all speech tokens recorded. All stimuli were recorded as MKV files initially to avoid lossy compression in the recording. A software-based x264 bit CPU encoding method was used for the recording, due to a lack of internal GPU encoding method (such as Nvenc encoding) on the home system. After the initial recording, the speech tokens were edited in length and converted to mp4 files at a resolution of 1280 x 720p and a frame rate of 60 frames per second. As the study would be completed on participant’s laptops or desktop systems and using their internet connection, we cannot ensure that all participants are using a device with a 1920 x 1080p resolution screen. By reducing the resolution of files to 720p, all potential participant resolution sizes can be accommodated whilst ensuring all participants view the files at the same resolution. For audio-only conditions, the video of the lips was overlayed with a plain black PNG image file. This kept the audio-only stimuli in video format rather than export the file as an mp3. Regarding the inability to control the internet connection speeds of each participant, the experiment was set to download all stimuli as browser cache before it began, ensuring that there were no latency differences. Audacity software (Audacity Team, 2021) was then used to rip the audio from the MKV files to be edited as WAV files in Praat software (Boersma & Weenink, 2021) for the creation of speech-shaped noise. First, a sentence using English words – ‘His plan meant taking a big risk’ - was recorded to provide a base for the speech-shaped noise. White noise was then produced using Praat’s white noise generator. The noise was brought down to an intensity tier, then an amplitude tier. This was then multiplied with the sentence above to create speech-shaped noise. Praat was then used to combine the speech-shaped noise with the speech-in-noise conditions at a speech to noise ratio of minus 16dB. This was done using a Praat script developed by McCloy (2021). Finally, Audacity was used again to ramp up the start and ramp down the ends of all audio files for every condition. The audio was then stitched back onto the MP4 files. For the conditions where the onset of the stimuli was asynchronous, Lightworks was again used to displace the audio ahead of the onset of the speech token using exact frames of the video footage (12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 frames per second) which corresponded with the stimulus onset asynchrony levels of the relevant conditions. The result was 42 stimuli in MP4 format, representing three speech tokens (Ba, Fa, and Ka) for each of the 14 conditions presented to the participant. These were uploaded to a GitHub repository to be accessed by Pavlovia during the experiment. Procedure Participants were first given a participant code and a link to the online Qualtrics consent and screening forms via email. A copy of the participant information sheet was displayed at the start of the Qualtrics questionnaire to remind participants of the study to ensure informed consent was given. Participants were also reminded at this stage to ensure that they were in a quiet room with no background noise, as well as to load the experiment on either Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox internet browsers on a laptop or desktop computer. They were explicitly told not to open the experiment on any other browser, such as Safari, nor on a mobile or tablet device as these were incompatible. Once consent had been given and the participant had met the screening criteria based on their answers, they were automatically redirected to the experiment on Pavlovia. If a participant did not meet the criteria for the study, they were redirected to a message informing them of their ineligibility and they were prevented from proceeding to the rest of the experiment. To begin the experiment, participants were once again reminded of browser and device limitations and told to use headphones in a quiet room. If a participant was using an incompatible device or browser to load the experiment, they were instructed to close the experiment and re-open it on the correct device or browser before beginning. A volume check began, in which a constant A tone played, and participants were asked to adjust the volume of their device as necessary for a comfortable auditory experience and to ensure that the audio was playing correctly at a sufficient volume level. In a typical lab setting, a set volume would be decided for all participants. However, as the study was completed online on the participant’s own devices, settling for the participant’s preferred hearing volume was preferable instead. Once complete, the spacebar would be pressed, and the tone stopped. Participants were then given a brief explanation of the task to complete. They were informed that a video would play either showing no visual information or visual information of lips moving. Meanwhile, speech would be played. Participants were told to listen carefully to the speech sound spoken, and after hearing the sound to press one of three buttons on their keyboards that corresponded with the three available speech tokens. They were reminded before and after each trial to press 'z' on their keyboard if they heard "Ba", 'x' for "Fa", or 'c' for "Ka”. Participants were told to answer as quickly as possible. If they were unsure, they were told to make a guess. To begin, participants were given 6 practise trials to attempt the task before data was collected. This was using the clear, 0ms, audiovisual condition stimuli, with 2 trials for each of the 3 speech tokens (Ba, Fa, and Ka). A white crosshair would be displayed on the screen for 1000ms before the trial began to bring attention to the centre of the screen where the video trials would be displayed. Stimuli were shown for 2500ms, then the response screen would display. On this screen, the participants were reminded of the buttons to press for each of the three speech sounds. Only the three buttons could be pressed and pressing the buttons whilst the stimuli were still playing was not possible. The first key pressed after the stimuli were played was recorded and then would take the participant to a relay screen, where they would be informed to press the spacebar to continue. Upon pressing the spacebar, the white crosshair would return, and the next trial began. After completing the practice, the participant was reminded of the task details once more before the experiment began for real. A total of 546 trials (not including the practise trials) were completed. The order of the trials and conditions was completely random to counterbalance any potential order bias. Every 42 trials, a broken screen would appear. This screen told the participant to take a short break before continuing with a press of the spacebar. If the participant did not wish to take a break, they were permitted to continue with a spacebar press immediately. There was a total of 12 breaks in the experiment. After each break, participants were asked a basic mathematics question, for example: ‘What is 3 +2?’. Participants could only proceed to the next chunk of trials if they responded with the correct answer. This was put in place to ensure that participants were continuing to pay attention to the experiment. Upon reaching the end of the final trial, participants were shown an ending screen where they were informed that the experiment had ended. Participants were also informed to email the primary researcher for debriefing information. Upon completing the study, participants could close the browser tab or window down and all data would remain recorded on the Pavlovia system. If a participant closed the browser tab or window during the experiment, partial data would be recorded up to the last trial that they responded to. If this was by mistake, participants could open the experiment again and restart. However, progress would not be saved, and the participant would have to start the experiment again from scratch. Using the same participant code would not overwrite the participant’s previous data, and instead created a new participant dataset. Full datasets were used over the partial dataset in this case, unless no full dataset was recorded for a participant. Analysis Descriptive statistics were first gathered from each condition for both the accuracy ratings and the reaction times. The assumptions of linear and generalised linear mixed-effects models were tested, including residual plots to check for linearity, quantile-quantile plots for normality, assessing the levels of multicollinearity between stimuli type, speech type, and stimulus onset asynchrony levels using variance inflation factors, and ensuring the assumption of homoscedasticity is met. Using both lmerTest (Kuznetsova et al., 2020) and lme4 packages, a combination of both linear mixed-effects regression model (LMER) analyses for the response time scores and generalized linear mixed-effects regression model (GLMER) analyses for the accuracy scores were conducted. LMERs were chosen instead of repeated measures generalised linear models like ANOVA tests because it considers random effects that may be present across all 546 trials on a participant-by-participant basis. As accuracy is inherently bound – due to either being accurate or inaccurate only – it can be argued to be categorical. Therefore, GLMERs were used for accurate analyses to ensure that assumptions of categorical dependent variables in mixed-effects models are met. For the LMER analyses, there were two models. Model 1 used response times as the dependent variable, modelled with stimuli type and speech type as fixed effects. The interactive effect between stimuli type and speech type was also included in the model. Model 2 used response times as the dependent variable, modelled with speech type and stimulus onset asynchrony timings as fixed effects. The interactive effect between speech type and stimulus onset asynchrony timings was also included in the model. The GLMER analyses also had two models. Model 1 used accuracy as the dependent variable, modelled with stimuli type and speech type as fixed effects, including the interactive effects between the two fixed effects. Model 2 used accuracy as the dependent variable, modelled with speech type and stimulus onset asynchrony timings as fixed effects. Again, interactive effects were included. For all four analyses, the speech sound token used (Ba, Fa, or Ka), participant age, and the participant ID were all included as random effects in the respective models.
Sexualised Advertising through Instagram: An exploration into the effects this has on female appearance satisfaction
This study explored the beliefs and opinions held by females aged 20-23 years on Instagram. It aimed to uncover possible effects that exposure to sexualised content and beauty standards could have on young female’s appearance satisfaction. Previous literature has addressed extensively how social comparisons and internalisation of beauty ideals can negatively affect females, increasing body dissatisfaction. This research aimed to expand these findings, exploring how body and facial attractiveness seen online can affect appearance satisfaction as a whole. Previous studies have determined that internalisation and social comparison are prevalent in women that compare themselves to others on Instagram. These theories along with objectification and cultivation theory are utilized to comprehend female’s perceptions of beauty and how it could be implicating them to act in a sexualised way online. The study consisted of two focus groups, each lasting approximately one hour. A convenience sample was used recruiting university students. A semi-structured interview schedule was utilised to allow for rich data to be produced. The data was categorised by using thematic analysis strategies of coding, mapping and deducing themes. The research conclusion found that women did report decreased appearance satisfaction when viewing ‘beautiful’ girls on Instagram, social comparisons was identified as more salient with peers, yet they did also report comparing themselves with reality television stars. Findings also reported that internalisation of beauty ideals was strong, they remark television and the social media for ‘normalising’ beauty standards. Lastly, participants were found to self-objectify themselves in a sexual manner more for Instagram than other social media sites.
This study explores the possible effects social networking site Instagram has on young females, in relation to their appearance satisfaction. Overall, it aims to add to existing literature within this field and other domains such as sociology and women’s studies, whilst also extending previous literature, as this research looks beyond body satisfaction and addresses appearance satisfaction completely. It also provides scope into understanding Instagram and the magnitude of its effects on the user, as the majority of previous literature focuses on Facebook. 3.1 Research Design Two focus groups were conducted, each lasting approximately one hour. The focus group was held in a small lecture theatre at Lancaster University in the Management School (Lecture Theatre 12). A phenomenological approach was applied as the research aims to explore a group of participant’s experiences and aims to further make sense of these experiences (Creswell, 2013). Application of focus groups was applied as it allowed for a semi-structured narrative of findings. The participants were able to express their thoughts, feelings and opinions in relation to this topic of research. A semi-structured interview type was applied as it allows for more flexibility, allows for more rapport building and these aspects can lead to richer data which enters more novel spheres (Smith & Osborn, 2003). 3.2 Sampling The overall sample consisted of 13 female students studying at Lancaster University between the ages of 20-23 years. This age was used as research has suggested that young females within these age brackets tend to be heavy Instagram users. These participants were recruited through convenience sampling, no specific recruitment criteria concerning use of social media was applied, in order to allow this variable to fall out naturally in the sample. 3.3 Research Procedures 3.3.1 Materials The participants were given an information sheet and a consent sheet at the beginning of the focus groups. These detailed the purpose of the study, outlined the potential risks/benefits, and provided the participants with information regarding their anonymity and confidentiality as well as making them aware of their right to withdraw. During the focus group participants were asked to discuss images which included advertisements of brands and celebrities and well as images showcasing cosmetic enhancements (See appendix E). The focus groups were recorded using a MacBook Pro, the recordings were stored in a file on the laptop, which was password protected. 3.3.2 Interview Schedule A discussion guide was created for the focus groups which outlined a schedule for conversation and was used to informally guide the discussion. Guides are used to be suggestive, not prescriptive (Smith and Osborn, 2003). The discussion guide contained open-ended questions which were used to detect Instagram usage, opinions, beliefs and perceptions. However, it must be noted that some additional questions were asked during the focus group, coherent with its semi-structured nature to gather richer data where applicable. Lastly, the discussion guide was created to address the research aim. 3.3.3 Ethical Considerations The research design adhered to Lancaster’s Universities ethics committee which is in line with the British Psychological Society’s Code of Ethics and Conduct (BPS, 2009). Each participant gave informed consent, they were informed of the confidentiality agreement, which was to anonymise their identity when using the data by given each of the individuals a pseudonym (Forrester, 2010). Participants were ascribed a pseudonym from the letters A-L to protect their identities. They were informed of their right to withdraw and were given a debrief sheet at the end of the focus groups. Data recorded was discussed only between the researcher and the supervisor. 3.3.4 Data Analysis Procedure Data analysis from the research findings are used in a way which helps to manifest the respondent’s discussion, to examine possible beliefs or constructs as portrayed by the participants (Smith and Osborn, 2003). This aims to understand the complexity of the content, rather than depicting general frequency. The transcript is used to interpret meanings beyond the literal meaning, including context and deducing themes from the data. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the transcribed data. This method was utilised due to its flexible nature, which helps to produce rich descriptions and accounts of the topic being studied (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The research followed the 6-stage account as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006). Stage one of their model involves familiarity of content, which is done by re-reading the transcripts. Stage two involves identifying key features and giving them a relating initial code. Thirdly, themes are deduced from the features by combining relevant codes, some create sub-themes and others are able to be subordinate themes. Fourthly, the themes are broken down and refined into separate themes, in the fifth stage these themes are used to create a thematic map. Lastly, each theme is written up and analysed to the fullest extent.
Sketch Mental Reinstatement of Context: A Comparison of Autistic and Typically Able Children’s Drawings
The increasing number of children coming into contact with the criminal justice system is prompting further research into interviewing children. There is a lack of research in the area of children with developmental disorders such as autism (Mcrory, Henry & Happe, 2007). As sketching is one of the domains in which children develop favourably in comparison to their age matched peers it could be utilised in order to gain the most information. Sketch MRC has been used on typically developing individuals and has been very beneficial for a variety of reasons such as; gives structure to narrative, lessens cognitive demand of interviewer and also lessens social demand of interview. This study aims to see whether content and style of the drawings of typically developing and autistic group are similar. Also correlating data in the sketch to data from the interview recall would give insight into how the act of drawing may be beneficial. A group of 30 children who were either typically developing or autistic were split into 3 groups depending on the results of BPVS 3 and RPM. All children watched a film stimulus and were then asked to recall as much information as possible in a sketch MRC condition. The drawings were then analysed. Autistic children’s sketches when compared with mental ability matched children showed similarities in; number of salient items, number of items drawn, representational detail, detail in human figure drawings, number of correct, incorrect and confabulation as well as accuracy. A regression model indicated correct number of items recalled in verbal transcript significantly predicted the correct number of items in the sketch. By presenting a significant relationship between number of correct items sketched and recalled it can be said the act of drawing is useful in the sketch MRC condition. This indicates that the sketch MRC condition is just as useful for the autistic individuals as it is for the TD individuals.
A between subject’s experimental design was employed with two independent variables: Group, with two levels: (i) autistic, (ii) typically developed, and Mental ability: low, intermediate, and high. The dependent variable was the drawings which were produced during the interview and were coded using a top down coding scheme measuring the number of correct, incorrect, confabulated items of recall and accuracy. Content including representational detail of human figure drawing and what the individual focuses whether it is on people or the environment. Qualitative analysis attempts to uncover a range of issues such as; is structure used in the sketch, whether the sketches depict movement or a still image, the detail with which the items are drawn, and if the sketch demand interaction. Materials Film stimulus – Each child individually viewed a non-violent crime film exactly one minute in duration. The stimulus film was one which had been previously used in police training sessions. Keeping in mind ethical guidelines the clip shown had no abuse or violence. The film depicted a busy road with a roundabout, two people walk from around the corner and into a shop. Moments later the two individuals run out of the shop with another individual chasing after them. The clip then ends. The British Picture Vocabulary Scale: Third Edition (BPVS3) is used in order to act as a distracter task but also determine the child’s mental ability. The BPVS3 plays an important role in assessing a child’s receptive vocabulary, from 3 years up to 16 years of age. Ravens Progressive Matrices (RPM) is also required not only to act as a distracter task but also determine the child’s mental ability. The RPM is a nonverbal group test ranging from 5 year olds to the elderly. It consists of 60 multiple choice questions listed in order of difficulty. iPad was used to show children the film stimulus with approximately a 8-inch screen. The child was able to hold the iPad themselves to watch the film stimulus. Procedure Each child was individually taken from their class and shown the film stimulus by an assistant teacher. The researcher did not show the clip to the child, as the child was led to believe that the researcher has never seen the clip before. This was done to make sure the child recalled as much information as possible, and did not presume the researcher already knew it all. Once they had watched the entire film stimulus, the child was brought into a different room by the researcher. The researcher then began to carry out the BPVS3. When this was completed the child was asked to work through the RPM and complete the 60 questions. This allowed the child and researcher to build a rapport and also acted as a distracter task from the film stimulus. The researcher then explained to the child that for the next part of the experiment the child’s voice would be recorded. The child was asked for their permission and if the child agreed the researcher explained that recording was about to begin. The child was then asked to recall as much information about the video clip as possible, and asked to draw what they remember. Once they had began drawing they were then asked about their drawing with questions such as ‘what is it that you are drawing there?’ They were given as much time as required to complete the drawing. Once the drawing was completed, the child was asked to tell the researcher about everything they remembered, and told they were free to use the drawing to help them in the explanation. After the child had told the researcher about everything they remembered in a free recall phase, the child was questioned on what they remembered. For example, if the child said there were two people, the researcher would try and gain some in depth information about these people. The child was then thanked for taking part in the experiment and told that their parent or guardian will be given a gift voucher for them to spend. Scoring The drawings produced by autistic and typically developed children were coded alongside the transcripts from the interview to aid the understanding of the drawings. A similar approach was successfully adopted in Campbell, Sicovdal, Mupambireyi and Greyson (2010) as it minimised the analysts’ subjective interpretation of the drawings. However, the transcripts themselves were not analysed as they form the dataset of another PhD project. The rationale for using the transcripts is to aid understanding of the drawing is offered by Each drawing was analysed using a three-step framework (see Fig.1) which started by analysing to what extent sketches represented the event that was witnessed. This was done to determine whether the sketch was successful in depicting the TBR event. The second step involved further analysing the items in the drawing, focusing on correctness. The final step examined representational detail and differences in what groups focussed upon, as well as qualitative analysis. The first step of analysis shed light on the overarching aim of the study and to gain an idea about how the sketches depicted an illustration of the film stimulus. A gross measure of the sketches was taken, which took into consideration the total number of attributes, to give an understanding of how detailed these sketches were. To determine whether the sketches successfully depicted what was shown in the film stimulus, the five most salient aspects of the TBR event were defined as follows: a road, cars, two individuals, shop, and another individual (the victim). One mark was awarded for each aspect depicted in the sketch, giving a possible total completeness score of 5. The following step in analysis was to bring to attention correctness scores. Every item drawn in the sketch was determined as correct, incorrect (sketching one person going into the shop instead of two) or a confabulation (sketching a detail that was not present in the film stimulus). Accuracy was calculated by dividing total number of correct items sketched by total number of items. The items were then divided into three groups whether they illustrated people or environment. Using the PhD projects data a correlation is carried out to see whether total number of items and total number of correct items depicted in the sketch correlates with total number of items and total number of correct items recalled in the transcript. This would help understand how useful the act of sketching rather than focusing on the sketches content. As it was of essence to capture representational details human figure drawings were recognised on their complexity according to Cox and Parkins (1986) classification system of human figure drawings. In this stage data will be analysed qualitatively in order to gain a better understanding of the sketches. Figure 1. Concepts guiding analysis of drawings.
Student Experiences of Mental Health Issues in Further and Higher Education.
Mental health, stress, achievement anxiety, depression, students, education, provisions, resilience.
Previous research has shown that students are at risk of experiencing mental health difficulties, specifically relating to anxiety, depression, and stress (Andrews, Hejdenberg, & Wilding, 2006; Holland, 2016; Landow, 2006; Lattie, Lipson, & Eisenberg, 2019; Nascante, 2001; Shankar & Park, 2016). This study aimed to understand whether level of education, provisions to aid mental wellbeing within educational establishments, and students’ resilience were related to their mental wellbeing. A total of 94 participants were recruited for this study, however only 47 sets of data were complete enough to be used for the analyses. An online questionnaire using a series of demographic questions and subscales was used to collect data. No significant relationships were found between students’ mental wellbeing and their level of education or the provisions accessible to them in their place of education. However, a significant, negative correlation was found between students’ overall mental health and their resilience scores. Additional analyses were completed to better understand this and the same relationship was found between resilience and anxiety, depression, and stress. It was concluded that due to issues with power, more research with a larger sample is required to investigate these relationships further. It was also concluded that more understanding of resilience and mental health in students is required to be able to create better provisions.
Participants 94 participants (25 males, 43 females) were used for this study, they were a minimum of 18 to over 51 years old and were from educational establishments around the UK. Participants were recruited using the SONA participant recruitment system through Lancaster University and also by advertising on Facebook and Instagram. All participants were treated in accordance with BPS ethical guidelines and Lancaster University Department of Psychology provided ethical approval for the study (Appendix A). Only data from 47 participants was used due to incomplete datasets. Design This cross-sectional study used volunteers from the student population as participants as one sample group. This was a questionnaire-based study with four sub-scales using correlational analyses. The factors being analysed are detailed in the procedural section to follow. Procedure Adverts were placed on Facebook, and Instagram to help recruit participants to the study. Potential participants were provided with a link to the online survey, administered through Qualtrics. They were then provided with a participant information sheet (Appendix B) and gave informed consent (Appendix C) to participate on that basis. Informed consent was gained by participants selecting all six consent statements on the questionnaire. Following this, participants were presented with demographic questions and four measures (Appendix D). Following this, participants were presented with a debrief sheet (Appendix E) before being asked to close the tab. Materials Demographic Questions The questionnaire started with two demographic questions. These were: “How old are you in years?” with the options of “18-21/22-25/26-29/30-35/36-40/41-45/46-50/51+/Prefer not to answer” and “What was your assigned sex at birth?” with the options of “Male/Female/Prefer not to answer”. These items were included in this questionnaire to better understand the sample of participants included in the study. Level of Education Participants’ level of education was measured using one multiple choice item. This item was: “What level of education are you in?” The options for this multiple-choice item are “A Levels/ Apprenticeship/ Undergraduate Degree/ Postgraduate Degree/ PhD/ Other (please specify)/ Prefer not to answer”. This item was included to help investigate whether the level of participant’s education is related to their mental wellbeing. Mental Wellbeing Existing mental wellbeing was measured using two items which both used multiple choice options. These questions were: “Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental health condition?” This item had options of “Yes/ No/ Prefer not to answer”. “Please select if any of these diagnostic categories apply to your diagnoses.” This item was only included if the participant answered the previous question with “Yes”. The options for answering this item were “Anxiety Disorder/ Depression/ Eating Disorder/ Stress/ Psychosis/ Personality Disorder/ Other (please specify)/ Prefer not to answer.” Measures of Support Two questions were used in this questionnaire to decipher how supported students felt by their educational establishments. These questions were: “How much support do you feel is available for your mental health at your place of education?” This question used a Likert scale ranging from one (lots) to four (I don’t know) and including an option of ‘prefer not to answer’. This was followed by the open, qualitative question of “Please tell us about any mental wellbeing support you know is available in your place of education.” This question had an open response box, allowing participants to communicate their understanding of support available for their mental wellbeing in their educational institutions. Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) The Perceived Stress Scale (Andreou, et al., 2011; Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983; Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1994; Reis, Hino, & Añez, 2010; Roberti, Harrington, & Storch, 2006) (Appendix F) using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to five (very often). This scale consisting of ten items was used to measure how stressed participants believed they were for this questionnaire. One example of the items used in this scale is: “In the last month, how often have you felt that you were on top of things?” The ten-item version of this measure was used in this study because research (Roberti, Harrington, & Storch, 2006) generally commented that the ten-item scale was a reliable and valid measure of perceived stress when compared to the original, longer Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983). Therefore, the PSS-10 was chosen for this questionnaire to reduce time demands on participants without compromising the reliability and validity of the measure. Adult Resilience Measure Revised (ARM-R) The Adult Resilience Measure Revised (Resilience Research Centre, 2018; Jefferies, McGarrigle & Ungar, 2018) (Appendix G) was used within the questionnaire to assess participants’ resilience skills. This sixteen-item measure was a five-point Likert scale ranging from one (not at all) to five (a lot) with an option of ‘prefer not to answer’ and consisting of seventeen items to measure resilience. An example of an item on this scale is: “My friends stand by me during difficult times.” Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale Revised (CESD-R) The Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale Revised (Eaton, et al., 2004; Van Dam, & Earleywine, 2011) (Appendix I) was used as a measure in this study to assess how depressed the participants felt. This measure used a four-point Likert scale with the first being rarely or none of the time to most or all of the time and an option of ‘prefer not to answer’ include. There were 20 items included in this scale in order to measure this factor, one such example of this is: “I felt everything I did was an effort.” Achievement Anxiety Test (AAT) The Achievement Anxiety Test (Alpert & Haber, 1960) (Appendix I) was used in this questionnaire to measure how anxious participants were about their ability to achieve. This measure used a five-point Likert scale with one meaning always and five meaning never, this scale consisted of nineteen items. An option of prefer not to answer was also provided. One example of an item on the scale is: “I work most effectively under pressure, as when a task is very important.” All measures in this questionnaire had an additional option of ‘prefer not to answer’ added to them for the purpose of this study to allow for forced choices to be selected for the questionnaire answers without removing the participants’ right to withdraw or withhold information. Ethics This study was conducted after ethical approval was received from the ethics committee of the Lancaster University psychology department on 12th June 2023. One ethical issue that could come up in this study is that participants could believe that there is some diagnostic weight to the questionnaire. Analyses Descriptive statistics were taken for all variables and demographic data, specifically in regard to their mean and standard deviation. Following this correlational analyses were then completed to determine whether there were relationships between mental wellbeing scores taken as a combination of the AAT, PSS-10 and the CESD-R subscales included in the questionnaires, resilience, preexisting mental health, provisions being accessed, and educational level. If significant relationships are identified through the correlational analyses, regressions will be conducted to further investigate these relationships to identify whether they were causational.
Testing the Heat Hypothesis: The Relationship between Temperature and Violent Crime Rates
This paper explored the relationship between temperature and behaviour. In particular the effect heat has on violent crimes. The heat hypothesis states that increased ambient temperatures can cause increased aggressive motives and behaviours. The current study was longitudinal and archival. Data was collated from four different countries: U.S., Japan, Jamaica and Finland over a period of 40 years. Data was collected from reliable online sources for: Temperature in degrees Celsius (℃), rainfall in millimetres (mm), intentional homicide rates, assault rates, rape rates and burglary rates. Rainfall and burglary were control variables. Analyses revealed a significant and positive relationship between temperature and intentional homicide, assault and rape rates. Temperature and burglary were not significantly related. Such results provide support for the heat hypothesis. The relationship between heat and violent crime should be investigated further; as the effects of global warming increase, so may violent crime rates worldwide.
Data In accord with Anderson et al’s., (1997) methods, data of the following crimes were collected: intentional homicide, assault, rape and burglary within a specified 40 years. This crime data was sampled from the following countries databases: U.S., Japan, Jamaica and Finland. The inclusion criteria were to include the countries which had the most available data on crime. There were no data exclusions as the current study was retrospective, meaning all data had already been collected. The 40 years analysed within each country differed depending on data availability. Crime rates were collected in the U.S. between the years 1960 and 2000. Crime rates were collected in Japan between the years 1975 and 2015. Crime rates were collected in Jamaica between the years 1970 and 2010. Crime rates were collected in Finland between the years 1976 and 2016. Therefore there would have been 160 full observations of intentional homicide, assault, rape and robbery. However, due to limited data available there were gaps in the data. For the U.S., 40 full observations of intentional homicide, assault, rape and robbery were obtained. For Japan, 23 full observations were obtained and 17 partial. For Jamaica, 11 full observations were obtained and 29 partial. For Finland, 22 full observations were obtained and 18 partial. The crime data was police reported and per 100,000 of the population, as smaller figures were easier to manage. Crime data was collected from the following reliable online resources: Bourne et al., (2015), Burns (2013), (Knoema, 2011), (Nation Master, 2003), (Statista, n.d.), (Uniform Crime Reporting, 1930), (United Nations World Surveys, 2006), (UNODC Statistics, 1997). Websites were considered reliable if they were established official government data repositories. Temperature (℃) and rainfall (mm) data were also collected. This data was obtained from an online climate data portal (Climate Change Knowledge Portal, n.d.). Rainfall was included as a control variable to ensure that any significant effect was a consequence of increased temperatures, rather than reduced rainfall as a consequence of increased temperatures. If rainfall was not controlled for, it would be impossible to decipher whether the observed effect was caused by increased temperature or reduced rainfall. Apparatus Microsoft excel and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) were used for data analyses. Analytical approach This study was a longitudinal archival study which analysed existing data. The dependent variable (DV) was crime rates per 100,000 people, collated from reliable online data sources. The independent variables (IV) were: temperature and rainfall. The question asked was whether crime rates can be predicted by temperature and rainfall. The control variables were burglary and rainfall. Burglary was a control dependent variable, as it was expected that temperature would affect violent crime and not non-violent crime such as burglary. Rainfall was a control independent variable, so that rainfall could be controlled for and this made it possible to detect whether temperature alone had an effect on crimes. The data collected required certain properties: the source had to be reliable, crimes had to be police reported and crime rates needed to be reported per 100,000 of the population. Pre-existing data available online was collected and sorted into an excel spreadsheet. Each variable had a column on the spreadsheet: country, year, intentional homicide, assault, rape, burglary, temperature and rainfall. The country variable was categorical. Countries were coded: 1 for the U.S., 2 for Japan, 3 for Jamaica and 4 for Finland. The remaining variables were continuous. There were 160 observations, 40 years per country. Some observations included data on all four crimes; some were partially completed due to limited data. Firstly scatter graphs were plotted with crime against temperature for each country. This revealed the general direction of the relationships between the temperature and crimes. The main analysis was a linear mixed-effects model, where temperature and rainfall were fixed effects and country and year were random effects. This analysis was chosen because of the structure of data. For this study there were multiple samples of crime rate data over 40 different years for each country, and multiple samples of crime rate data for the four different countries for each year. Magezi (2015) described how linear mixed-effects models can include such multiple, nested groups and accommodates for missing data. This was useful because the current study was a longitudinal archival study and consequently had missing data. Analyses were conducted using SPSS. An alpha level of .05 was used for each linear mixed-effects model. +1 lag model analyses for each crime were also implemented, to account for a possible delay of the effect caused by exposure to temperature. To achieve this, the DV columns were shifted down one row using SPSS. It was necessary to check that all values still aligned with the correct country.
Testing The Validity of Videogame Modifications for Psychological Research
An experiment consisting of 40 participants sampled from both Lancaster University and the Sefton area investigated the validity of using video game modifications (Mods) to construct more reliable testing methods for video game research. Mods are additions to video game code that allow the manipulation of various otherwise unattainable features. It is typical of research in this area to use two different games when attempting to manipulate one variable, this often results in a failure to compare like for like leaving various extraneous variables unaccounted for. Building upon the work of Böche (2009), this present research uses a program Garry’s Mod to construct identical variations that were relatable to popular current games while attempting to manipulate a single variable, violence. Participants played both an antisocial and prosocial variation of the same game and were asked to fill out a survey documenting their opinions on the game and its traits. It was predicted that while features such as graphics, maps, difficulty and the player’s performance in the game would not differ, the self reported violence participants experienced between variations would significantly differ. Predicted trends were observed in ratings of violence t(39) = -22.06, p < .001 and whether the player character’s actions were perceived as prosocial t(39) = -14.64, p < .001. Contrary to predictions, participant’s reported enjoyment t(39) = -4.55, p< 0.001 and the similarity of the game mission to the current game market t(39) = -6.37, p < 0.001 also differed significantly between variations. The implications are discussed throughout the paper.
Participants were randomly allocated into two groups. The first group (“antisocial first”) played and answered questions concerning the antisocial version before then playing and answering questions concerning the prosocial version. The order was reversed for participants in the second group (“prosocial first”). Antisocial first. The group that played as soldiers first consisted of 14 males and 6 females. The ages of this sample ranged from 18 to 31 years with a mean of 22.25 and a standard deviation of 2.49. Prosocial first. A group of 14 males, 5 females and one individual who abstained from recording gender played the medic scenario first. The ages ranged from 19 to 26 years, with a mean of 22.3 standard deviation of 1.87. Task, Materials and Apparatus Several specialized items were required to set up and conduct this research. In order to attract participants, an email was sent to the Psychology students of Lancaster University as well as several flyers positioned around the department (See Appendix). These adverts offered a chance to win a £20 Amazon gift card for participation and provided individuals with the e-mail of researchers in order to set up meetings. Hardware. Data was collected using a Macbook Pro with a 13 inch screen. The laptop had a 2.5 GHz (Gigahertz) dual core processor, 4 GB (Gigabytes) of RAM (Random Access Memory), 500 GB Hard Drive memory space and an Intel HD Graphics 4000 graphics card. As well as the Macbook, an apple MagSafe power adapter, a wired optical mouse, a mouse mat and a USB powered laptop cooling pad were used (See Appendix). Software. The Macbook Pro operated the Mountain Lion operating system by Apple and several programs were required to run this experiment. Questionnaires concerning demographic information and perceptions of video games were created using an online research suite, Qualtrics. The questionnaire consisted of three sections (See Appendix). Firstly, participants were asked to input their demographic information such as age and gender, and information relating to their video game playing habits (“If you play video games, please tell us the name of your favourite video game?”, “Please tell us approximately how many hours per week you spend playing your favourite game?”). Some questions had pre-written responses, for example, the question regarding a participant’s gender could be answered as ‘☻ Male’, ‘☻ Female’ or ‘☻ Prefer not to say’. However, some questions were purposefully left open to response (e.g. How many hours a week do you spend playing video games?). The second and third section of the survey asked each individual to give responses to questions about the game they had previously played. These two sections were identical but the order of each item had been randomised in an attempt to reduce demand characteristics. The questions of most importance to the current study regarded how violent the participant felt the game they played was, as well as whether the actions of the video game character they controlled could be considered as prosocial or antisocial. Each question measured responses using a 7-point Likert scale beginning at 0 (“not at all”) and ending with 6 (“completely”). The first exception to this rule was that the question ‘To what extent was your virtual character behaving in a prosocial or antisocial manner?’ by using a scale beginning at -3 and ending with 3. The second exception to this rule was an item asking participants to read the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) definitions for age ratings of video games while asking them to estimate an age rating for the game they had previously played, the scale for this question was a 6-point Likert scale with the options 3+, 7+, 12+, 16+, 18+. To both construct and run the video game, the first program required was ‘Steam’ a digital video game client created by the company Valve to sell and store video games. Using Steam, Garry’s Mod was purchased to create and edit virtual environments and video game levels through a user-friendly interface featuring weapons, characters, miscellaneous objects and commands. A second game, Counter-Strike, was downloaded using Steam and provided the virtual environments that participants played in. Using Garry’s Mod, two versions of a game were created. In each version, there were 20 non-player characters (NPCs) scattered around the map for the player to locate and interact with; both variations had NPCs in the same starting location and a limited area in which they were allowed to move. When playing as a soldier, participants were told they had been sent to an enemy base and were tasked to eliminate all forces inside using the SMG. Whereas the medic scenario began under the pretence that the player character was a doctor sent to a quarantined facility to treat contaminated patients using a medikit. Players were informed to expect hostility during the antisocial variation, but were also made aware that 20 health vials scattered around the map to prevent the death of their virtual character. For the medic scenario, participants were informed that quarantined individuals purposefully avoid contact with their character, meaning they would often have to pursue the patient to administer treatment. Participants received no indication from the game as to whether an NPC had previously been treated; however, there was no penalty for giving the same NPC treatment twice. Design The study consists of a 2 level within-subject design whereby the independent variable is the version of the video game being played by: the soldier version or the medic version. Though both game environments have been designed to be identical, when individuals play as a solider they are asked to find and kill 20 enemy targets, whereas in while playing as a medic they are required to find and treat 20 contaminated patients. Procedure Having displayed interest in taking part in the study, participants were contacted by researchers to arrange a time and location to meet. Once a quiet area that would support the use of a computer with a Wi-Fi connection was found, participants were seated at a desk 20 cm from the MacBook. Before proceeding, participants were given a Participant Information Sheet (Appendix), which informed them that their participation was voluntary, that they could withdraw at any time and that their data was both anonymous and confidential. Participants were then provided with and asked to sign a consent form (see Appendix). Participants were given a 5-minute tutorial on the video game controls and mission aims. Participants then completed the demographic questionnaire, which was presented to them on the laptop. Participants indicated their name, gender, age and video game playing habits (see Appendix). Once the demographic questionnaire had been completed, participants played the first version of the video game. Participants in the soldier-first condition played the antisocial version requiring them to shoot other virtual characters. Participants explored using only the keyboard buttons ‘A’, ‘W’, ‘S’, ‘D’ and the mouse, each individual navigated an unfamiliar map searching for 20 NPCs and interacted with them using the left mouse button. A time limit of ten minutes was given for both play throughs while the researcher monitored the amount of soldiers killed or patients saved. After each variation was completed, participants answered a questionnaire on their experience playing the game, such as how similar was the mission given to them compared to games they usually play or how violent they felt the game was. Both questionnaires asked the same 9 questions, however the order in which these were presented was randomised in an attempt to reduce demand characteristics. After completing both games and their corresponding questionnaires, participants received a debriefing sheet outlining the expected findings and participants were given the chance to ask any questions they had about the study. Lastly, each individual was thanked for taking part and asked to provide a method of contact so that they might be informed if they won the Amazon gift card. Every participant agreed to have his or her data statistically analysed. Raw data was collected from Qualtrics and exported into an excel file, observations taken on video game performance (e.g number of patients saved) was added manually by the researchers. The dataset was then exported as a .csv file to be investigated using R Studio.
The Complexity of Language Used by Parents of Children with Down Syndrome in Shared Reading Tasks
Down Syndrome shared reading cognitive complexity prompts
Shared reading is a vital part of language development for children, and this is no less true for the development of language in children with Down Syndrome. Previous research has been concerned that parents use less complicated language when a child has Down Syndrome, and that parents should encourage their child to contribute more to the reading experience. This experiment attempted to evaluate the cognitive complexity of the language used by parents of children with Down Syndrome compared to the parents with typically developing children when reading aloud with their child, and whether including prompts inside a book could alter the complexity of the language used by parents. It was found that including prompts in a book appeared to make the experience more of a shared reading experience with turn-taking between parents and children increasing in the prompted condition. This means that prompted books should be considered as a tool to train parents to use dialogic reading techniques.
Mothers of typically developing children and mothers of children with Down Syndrome were recorded whilst reading aloud with their child in both a business as usual condition where they would read together as they usually would at home, and a prompted condition where pre-determined questions were inserted into the book which the mothers were required to ask their child when the book indicated that they should. The recordings were then written into transcripts of speech and behaviour during the task. Two books were used in this experiment ‘Mooncake’ and ‘Skyfire’. The prompted condition and the business as usual condition were counterbalanced so that half of the participants read the unprompted book first, and half read the prompted book first, and half of the participants received ‘Mooncake’ as the prompted book, and the other half received ‘Skyfire’ as the prompted book. This was done to eliminate the chance that more was said during read due to a preference for one book over the other. However, both of the books were written by the same author, so the chance of a participant having a preference should have been minimal, and the books were similarly matched on difficulty and length to ensure that language would not be affected due to any differences in these criteria. The prompted book included 12 questions to scaffold the mothers into asking questions related to the book. The parent would read the text in black ink, which was the actual story, and then ask the question in blue ink inserted into the bottom of the page. These questions related to picture labelling (e.g. ‘What is that object’), vocabulary questions (e.g. ‘What does terrible mean?’), making inferences about the text (e.g. ‘Why did that character fall asleep?’), and questions which required general knowledge (e.g. ‘What else could be used in this situation?’). The language skills required to answer these questions ranged from a simpler understanding which asked a child to label objects and about simple vocabulary, both of which require a concrete, definite answer, as well as requiring a more in depth understanding of the story and a higher level of general knowledge and language skills to answer questions which require inference. Measures To compare the level of complexity between the prompted condition and the business as usual condition, certain aspects of a reading session were measured. These measures included the total word count of the session, the total amount of words spoken by the parent during the session, the total amount of words spoken by the child, the length of the session in seconds, the number of questions asked by the parent, the mean amount of turn-taking in each session, and the totalled score based on a coding system by Tompkins et al. (2013) which measures the syntactic complexity of the parent’s language throughout the session. A breakdown of the word count of the session, and the length of the reading session are able to demonstrate how prompting a parent with pre-determined questions influences the language of a parent compared to when the parent is reading as they usually would because using more words, and reading the book over a longer period of time is exposing a child to more language, and therefore may be an important factor to consider during shared reading. Furthermore, the number of questions asked by a parent is an important consideration because of previous research highlighting the need for children to be able to answer literal and inferential questions (van Kleeck, Vander Woude & Baue 2003). Turn-taking was measured by adding up the amount of utterances that included a back and forth conversation between a parent and their child and taking the mean of this amount. The word counts, the questions asked, the turn-taking episodes, and the score provided by the coding system did not include when the parent spoke the prompt aloud, any non-words such as ‘ummm’ or ‘ermmm’, or when the parent read aloud from the book itself. This ensured that language during shared reading was what was being measured or coded, and not irrelevant discussions such as the language used by a parent when managing the behaviour of their child during the task. However, sign language used by parents and children in the Down Syndrome group was included as a word or a question due to the fact that sign language is a vital method of language production for those with a language impairment. Coding System The coding system adapted from Tompkins et al. (2013) examines the clausal structure of a sentence to highlight the syntactic complexity used by the speaker. Originally this coding system was used as a measure of children’s language when they are reading aloud with a teacher, but it has been adapted for the use of parent’s language for this experiment. Syntactic complexity of the language was measured by having each utterance spoken by a parent examined and coded as either having no verb code with no clauses or sentence structure (e.g. bear there), a simple code with one clause and verb in the utterance (e.g. the bear walked quickly), or as having a complex code with two or more verb structures in the utterance (e.g. he ate the cake and fired the rocket). An utterance with no verb code was given 0 points, a sentence with simple code was given one point, and an utterance labelled as complex code was awarded two points. The points were added up for each parent and divided by the number of utterances by the parent to provide each individual with a ‘complexity score’ for each condition based on the syntactic complexity of the language used during shared reading. The points total was divided by the number of utterances to ensure that a high complexity score was due to a genuine higher complexity of language rather than the fact that the parent had spoken more and could therefore potentially be awarded more points. The coding was completed by one person, and therefore inter-rater reliability is not a concern for this experiment. Research Design A 2(condition: typically developing vs. Down Syndrome) x 2(book type: business as usual vs. prompted) mixed groups ANOVA was used in this experiment with the condition being the between subjects group with half of the participants being in the typically developing group and half of the participants being in the Down Syndrome group, and the book type being the within subjects group with all participants reading one business as usual book, and one prompted book. This was used to observe the effect of group type and the effect of book type on complexity score, the number of questions asked, the total number of words spoken by parents and children and the length of session in both the typically developing group and the Down Syndrome group to examine whether these shared reading factors changed within each group between the prompted and business as usual books. This design allowed for the study of whether parents with typically children or parents of children with Down Syndrome use more complex language, and whether a prompted book or business as usual reading can influence the use of language by a parent during the experience of shared reading.
The Construction of Female Sexual Agency in Contemporary Advertising: Empowerment or Objectification?
media, advertising, psychology, sociology, psycho-social, sexualisation, objectification, empowerment, sexual empowerment gender, me too, feminism, post feminism, neoliberalism
Building on the work of Gill (2008) on postfeminist female gender representation in advertising, more specifically the shift from representing women as sexual objects to representing women as active sexual subjects, this work presents an exploration of young adults’ constructions and depictions of contemporary sexualised representations of women; of whether the new construction of female sexual agency is seen as empowering as opposed to objectifying. Furthermore, this analysis is concerned with the susceptibility of young audiences to advertising’s attempts to integrate neoliberal/postfeminist ideas in their communication strategies. A tangent question to this research is an exploration of contemporary audiences’ awareness of recent movements against sexual harassment (MeToo); of potential implications these may have in the construction of the new femininity. The study consisted of both same-sex (male, female) focus groups and mixed-gender focus groups in order to ensure complementarity of insights. Findings suggest thatthere is no simple negotiation between empowerment and objectification. Female sexual agency cannot be denied, nor can women be understood as completely free agents, living independent of any external influence or constraint. Female empowerment in advertising must not limit female gender representation/empowerment to women’s sexuality and should distance itself from its constant rapport with the male as female empowerment, also femininity, must be understood and represented much more broadly.
advertising must not limit female gender representation/empowerment to women’s sexuality and should distance itself from its constant rapport with the male as female empowerment, also femininity, must be understood and represented much more broadly. Methods Section:This study investigates the construction of female sexual agency in advertising. More specifically, it contributes to existing feminist post-structuralist literature, critique and debates around representations of gender in media culture as it explores young adults’ perceptions of female gender representations in advertisements that depict women sexually. Research DesignA phenomenological approach was adopted in this research as participants were invited to express their views on specific advertising stimuli, to discover and ascribe meaning to cultural depictions of female sexuality. Focus groups were conducted with five (male), six (mixed) and seven (female) participants who engaged in a semi-structured discussion. Participants expressed their thoughts in relation to the topic of research as consisting of various pre-established themes. SamplingThe sample consisted of 18 participants of which nine were females and nine were males. All participants identify as undergraduate or postgraduate students at Lancaster University, aged 20-27 years old. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling. Despite being current residents of Lancaster, they originate from different countries (England, Bulgaria, Lithuania, U.S., China, France, Andorra, and Greece). Research ProceduresMaterialsParticipants were provided with an information sheet and consent form before the focus group. The information sheet provided participants with information about the study, the scope of research, their confidentiality and anonymity, and also the opportunityto further enquire about the study. Focus groups discussion were recorded via Iphone Voice Memo recorder. The recordings were removed from the researcher’s Iphone and stored on the researcher’s password protected laptop. Participants were given a debrief sheet as soon as the focus group and recording ended. AdvertisementsA wide range of contemporary advertisements (See Appendix E) were spontaneously selected from targeted advertising in the UK, used as stimuli and shown chronologically to participants during the focus groups so they could discuss their opinions of how female sexual agency has been depicted for the past decade. Specific advertisements were selected based on the way they depict women sexually –as a means of empowerment of women as independent sexual agents. 1.Coco Mademoiselle (2011)was selected for this discussion as it depicts a new form of female sexual agency where the woman is presented as playful and sensual and not overtly sexual. During the focus groups, I sought to understandwhether the protagonist wasperceivedas strong and independent; as playful and sensual as opposed to overtly sexual. Advertisement URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRV-2_Un-kk2.Dior Poison Girl (2016) was selected as discussion stimuli becauseit received numerous complaints for being misogynist, objectifying and denigrating of women as the protagonist is seen as a sexual object of male gaze and desire. The brand defended themselves by stating that instead of acting promiscuously, the girl rejected the man which can be viewed as empowering to women. In the focus group discussion, I sought to establish whether this ‘midriff’ discourse of sexuality is seen as empowering or objectifying.Advertisement URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re4icu2NXO83.Dior J’adore (2016) presents Charlize Theron as the ‘absolute femininity icon’ as she is celebrating her union with the water, the earth, the sun, and herself; basking in water and sunlight while posing sensually. This ‘absolute femininity’ is ultimately promised through the divine Dior fragrance which elevates the female to the status of goddess. In my focus groups, I soughtto understand whether this wasperceived as a relevant depiction of the sexually empowered woman; whether the absolute femininity wascaptured by the brand in their advertisement or it takes more than a sparkly dress and shots of an actress caressing herself in anoasis.Advertisement URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaJ-TE1xZVA4.The Calvin Klein Fall campaign (2016)-edgy, sexual, youth and celebrity charged–was also selected. Many expressed their outrage as they considered it offensive, exploitative, objectifying and sexist while highly targeting young audiences. While objectors may look at it as another case of women being sexualised against their will, internet generations could embrace the hashtag language, therawstyleofthe photos and videos, the celebrities featured and their non-conformist styles. In the focus groups, I explored participants’ perceptions of this sexually charged campaign, its construction of female sexuality, and whether it is authentic and empowering. Advertisement URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMRbSI6QAWs 5.Another short advertisement from the same campaign was shown in order to explore participants’ perceptions of the way model Kate Moss was depicted in the Calvin Klein Campaign (2016) -through highly explicit, vulgar, yet censored, claims she makes aboutmen and romantic love.Advertisement URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C-ea6J9YdY6.After discussing recent international movements against sexual harassment, the last and most recent adverts were shown with the scope of exploring participants’ understanding of ‘the new femininity’ as depicted in advertising. Shimmer in the Dark by Jimmy Choo (2017) was selected as it showed model Cara Delevingne, walking the streets at night, scantily clad, being catcalled. Unlike usual catcalling, consisting of offensive sexual remarks, the protagonist received compliments on her shoes. While this was considered highly idealistic by many, it was primarily considered ‘tone-deaf’ to the uncomfortable reality of sexual harassment experienced by many. I sought to ask participants whether they see this as empowering, whether they consider it idealistic or rather insensitive to the women’s general sentiment; whether a woman can dress herself that way and feel safe and empowered.Advertisement URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPrRRgagQg87.The focus groups ended with a discussion of the most recent Coco Mademoiselle (2018)advert, another potential example of the new femininity. After previously watching Coco Mademoiselle (2011), it was worth looking at their most recent portrayal of the same female —Kiera Knightley —as playfully seductive but even more youthful, enigmatic and unapologetic. She parties, flirts and despite a lot being left to the imagination, she eventually leaves the man. In focus group discussions, I sought to explore whether this carefree, adventurous persona wasperceived as the new femininity; asempowering or not. Advertisement URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkKROkzYdXsInterview ScheduleA discussion guide (See Appendix D) was created in order to guide and time the focus group discussions. The discussion guide consisted of several pre-established themes and related questions so that the discussion, despite being informal, maintained its intended focus. Additional questions were asked by both the researcher and the participants in order to clarify or lead the discussion. Snacks and refreshments were used as incentives and provided to all groups. There were three focus groups: a male group with five males, a mixed one with four males and two females, and a female group with 7 females. Each focus group, lasting approximately 120-minute-long, was conducted at Lancaster University. Due to the influence of gender composition of a group on the nature of participants'interaction and thequality of the data, this study has incorporated both same-sex (male, female) groups and onemixed-gender group(male and female) in order to obtaincomplementaryinsights (Stewart, Shamdasani & Rook, 2007).Ethical ConsiderationsThis research was designed to align with by the Lancaster University Ethics Committee/departmental ethical standards. Participants gave informed consent and were reassured confidentiality and anonymity. Their data was anonymised by replacing their names with initials representative of their gender and orderly numeration. They were informed of their permanent right to withdraw from the study and provided with all the necessary documents (information sheet, consent form, debrief). Research data and findings were only be accessed by the researcher and the supervisor. Data Analysis ProcedureA six-stage thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to identify, analyse, and report reoccurring patterns (themes) within the data. The analysis can be described as an orderly process consisting of the following stages: familiarisation with the data, generating initial codes, discovering themes within the codes, reviewing and defining them, and the eventual writing of the analysis and study findings (Braun & Clarke, 2006).