Solution Tag: Longitudinal

BEHAVE: setup of a behavioural panel through MOTUS

Posted on August 31, 2018 by -

Background

Online panels are unavoidable in science

An individual’s opinion is central to better understanding the needs and behaviours of customers, users of services, and employees. The power of opinion is getting more important in market research. The internet provides a quick and cheap way to collect opinions, which gives online panels an important role in the collection of market oriented data (see regulations ISO26362). Fast and cheap available data also leads to the increased use of online panels for scientific purposes.

How reliable and valid are online panels?

Companies exploiting panels parade with the size of their panels and the subpopulations that are part of it. These two elements support the service they provide: opinions of a representative sample of the population or group in question.

On the contrary, information about the recruitment or entry of panel members is often scarce. This information, however, is essential for knowing the (non-)response rate and make generalised statements about a (sub)population. More information, for example about how often panel members participate successfully and about the quality of their answers, is often lacking as well.

A prerequisite for reliable and valid results is a random sample (f.e. from the National Register). This increases the representativeness of the panel and supports generalised statements about a (sub)populations. At the same time, all decisions and steps in the process of creating a panel need to be documented.

International examples of academic panels

There are a small number of panels in Europe that are managed according to academic standards. Examples are

  • LISS panel – Langlopende Internet Studies voor de Sociale wetenschappen – The Netherlands
  • GESIS panel – Leibniz-Institute für Sozialwissenschaften – Germany
  • ELIPSS panel – Étude Longitudinale par Internet Pour les Sciences Sociales – France

Outside Europe, some leading panels exists. Examples are:

  • HILDA panel – Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia – Australia
  • ALP panel – American Life Panel – America
  • UAS panel – Understanding America Study – America

It is striking that most panels are oriented towards social sciences with a focus on the individual. The HILDA panel is an exception. This panel focusses on the household from an (socio-)economic point of view.

Project BEHAVE

Design and aim

Project BEHAVE combines the need for an academically oriented panel with the focus on expanding knowledge on longitudinal patterns of behaviour. Data on human behaviour will be collected using the MOTUS software platform, both by means of active and passive registration. The project includes an interdisciplinary team and has the following goals:

  • Creating a panel in Belgium according to academic principles of reliability and validity;
  • Linking this panel to MOTUS, which will serve as the respondent management and research coordination platform;
  • Expanding existing methods of active registration (i.e. active involvement of respondent) with methods of passive registration (i.e. using wearables, sensors, and databases linked to MOTUS);
  • Focussing on a longitudinal, multidisciplinary, and open source data collection strategy.

Together, these aims make BEHAVE a unique project.

The process

The BEHAVE project exists of three types of partners. Central to the project is a multidisciplinary team of scientists at the VUB, from the department of Social Sciences & Solvay Business Schools, the department of Engineering Sciences, the department of Medicine and Pharmacy, and the department of Physical Education and Physiotherapy. In addition, an open call is done to include other scientific institutes. Finally, third parties can participate as well, as there might be: policy institutions, ngo’s, non-profit organisation, companies, etc. At this moment, 23 third parties have expressed their interest, including the Belgian statistical office (STATBEL).

“The research community needs an academic panel to render reliable and valid opinions of people. This holds both for scientific as well as for market research.”

The academic principles of reliability and validity are priority when creating the BEHAVE panel, as is securing privacy of its panel members.

Aim: at least 5,000 to 10,000 panel members

The project aims to include 5,000 randomly selected respondents in a panel in the first phase of the project. Behavioural research requires a greater effort of respondents than opinion research. This means that large scale studies can at most be repeated every three months. This can be supplemented with studies of a smaller scale. In a second phase, the project aims to increase the size of the panel to 10,000 respondents. Based on the interest and inclusion of other institutions, this number might rise.

Learn more?

The project starts in October 2018 and runs for four years. If you want to learn more about the project and the possibility to be included, contact Joeri Minnen.

Impact of a 30-hour workweek on daily practices

Posted on January 5, 2018 by -

Reviving societal debate(s)

The debate on reducing working hours is reviving. Researchers, as well labour movements and even political parties see advantages in a collective decrease in working time. Working time has been decreasing since the beginning of the 20th century, due to increases in technological productivity. However, in some countries this trend has reversed in the last decades. Arguments for a workweek of 8 hours less than the usual 38 have risen. The arguments are displayed on the personal, household, societal and economical level.

Experiments abroad

The debate on reducing working hours in Belgium resembles the debates held in other countries. In some countries, mostly Scandinavian, some organisations have adopted the 30-hour workweek and evaluated the outcomes of this reduction in working hours.

Most discussions turn to one experiment in Sweden: the retirement home in Svartedalen where the nursing staff works only 6 hours per day over 5 working days, after the new working time arrangements were adopted. The experiment took place between February 2015 and December 2016. To compensate the loss in working hours, almost 15 FTE were hired.  Two control groups were used in this experiment. The findings of the shorter workweek turned out to be the following:

  • [Personal] Reduced working hours had a positive impact on the employees’ health
  • [Client] The quality of the service was improved
  • [Societal] The decrease in working time had created more jobs
  • [Economic] The financial cost had increased

Femma vzw

Situated in Schaarbeek (Brussels) Femma employs 62 women and one man. Most of them work full time, and are higher educated. In 2016 Femma outlined multiple strategies to balance the responsibilities for work and family.

Besides supporting an experiment in Belgium, Femma as a woman organization wants to supplement this debate by showing how these extra 6 hours a week have a positive impact on the combination of work-and-family. In doing so, Femma raises this debate from an intrinsic individual story to the societal level where the 6 extra hours influences multiple life spheres and in which more than only the employee has a benefit. Furthermore, the collective reducing of the working hours has been a feminist demand since the 1970s. The idea is that this will help reduce gender inequality in paid and unpaid work.

Action-research

In 2019, an ‘action-research’ will be kicked-off in which these employees and their family members will encounter the reduction in working hours in real life.  During the period of one year all employees will work 6 hours per day, with their wages being unchanged.

Have a look to the project poster of Femma

The main goal of this research is to build up practical knowledge in how a 30-hour workweek supports the combination of work and family. Therefore, not only the employees but also their partners will be asked to participate in a research of two times one week during 2019.

The research consists of time recording through MOTUS including activities related to work and private spheres. In this way, an insight in how work and family interrelates is achieved.

Two questionnaires will also be filled in by all the participants. In 2018 a preliminary research will be carried out and in 2020, when Femma employees return to their 36-hour week, respondents will be asked to complete a time registration once again. In this way, an insight in how work and family interrelates in different working time schedules is achieved.

Goal of Femma

Besides their contribution to the societal debate, this research should be understood as real-life case study in which an investment shows both the costs and benefits on all levels. So not only less work and higher cost but also the impact on the absenteeism, the living standards, and the happiness in life will be a valuable addition to our knowledge.

Prio-climate

Posted on January 5, 2018 by -

Renovation in social housing

Renovation is at the top of the EU-priority list to higher the energetic performance of buildings and to acquire a high-level indoor air quality for sanity reasons.

Media campaigns and subsidy strategies are used to convince private owners to invest in their houses.  All parties together need to take actions to arrive to a fully renovate building stock in 2050.

However, an important group of people do not own the house they live in. For these houses the renovation rate is much lower, while the financial and health costs remain to be paid by the dwellers themselves. This is even more true for families who cannot even afford to rent a house or apartment to stay in. Many of these families rely on social housing companies who make apartments of house available against a low monthly rent. These houses are most-often not adapted to today’s energy and living standards.

Foyer Anderlechtois

The Social Housing Company Foyer Anderlechtois is exemplary in Belgium for houses with a lower living standard of their stock. They manage about 3.700 tenements (apartments and houses) in Anderlecht. About 500 houses are situated at the quartier ‘Bon Air’, or ‘Good Air’.

Action plan

Foyer Anderlechtois’ action plan is to renovate 86 houses in 2018-2020 in Bon Air. This renovation includes modernization, isolation and ventilation. But, just like in every project and now even more, choices must be made. Due to budgetary reasons. And ventilation is often neglected in favour of (e.g.) isolation. While a good ventilation is a precondition for a good air quality and subsequently a healthier life.

This good ventilation is reached more easily with a ventilation system type D hybrid where windows are being opened and closed automatically based on censored data. On the other hand, a type C can be used with fixed ventilation grills in the windows. Variations in between exist.

Living Lab

This project is initiated to set up a living lab where in multiple houses multiple ventilation systems will be introduced with variations in costs and in ease of use. The brings us to three research questions:

  • How do other renovation aspects have an impact on the ventilation performances and needs?
  • How do dwellers in a real day-to-day situation make use of the ventilation system?
  • How satisfied are the dwellers with the ventilation system in use?

It is in particular the day-to-day performance of the ventilation system, the usage by the dwellers and their appreciation about it that are essential in the decision to promote a certain ventilation system. These essentials are brought into light by MOTUS.

Towards a reproduction approach

About 20 households will be followed over the period of one year. Over this period dwellers will keep a registration of their behaviour and answering (triggered) questions about the air quality (e.g. during the night) and their interaction with technical devices in the house (opening or closing windows, switching on/off ventilation system). At the same time technical measurements will take place to grasp information on the temperature, CO2, amount of particles, … .

Both streams of data need to arrive to a balanced renovation concept that includes ventilation solutions and that is affordable, replicable and acceptable by dwellers in social housing.

PhD survey

Posted on January 5, 2018 by -

Getting to know the PhD-trajectory

The PhD degree programme has made some implicit changes the past decade. Most important the number of PhD students grew significantly while at the same time number of promotors (University Professors) has not changed in the same way. With this PhD Survey the Vrije Universiteit Brussel wants to underpin:

  • how much time they devote to their research;
  • visualise the support PhD students receive from their supervisor(s) and from their broader scientific guidance network.

The main question is to assess the Quality in the PhD process.

Goal: more satisfied students

Almost every PhD student experiences the valley of doubt whether to successfully complete their PhD in time. Most typically this state occurs somewhere between the second and third year of the 4-year PhD-period.

The Central PhD Office is therefore focused on getting a better insight into every step of the PhD process, from the enrolment onwards, to avoid this trap that lowers the well-being of the PhD students.

An accompanying survey along the way

In this 5-year project we follow PhD-students from their first steps until they graduate as a Doctor. Via a survey, we collect valuable information on the research plan, the timing of the PhD-project, the workload, the working time arrangements, and the research output. We also focus on the support given by the supervisor, the extended network of colleagues, and the input of doctoral schools.

Towards a multi-actor action plan

This longitudinal approach makes it possible for the Central PhD Office to map problems, to see how the evolve over the years and to adapt their policies or actions.

To have an insight PhD-student receive an overview of their own situation or ‘feedback by self-evaluation’. Based on this output PhD-students can ask/or are asked to have a meeting with their faculty representatives, or faculty responsible.