software worked, how to upload log
files, and how to conduct software
upgrades, providing valuable technical
training. At the end of the study, we
left two versions of the Mind-Full
system, including all the hardware.
The staff could then continue to work
with the children if they chose. We
knew that even if they didn’t, they
could utilize the four tablets. For
example, the tablets provided a way for
counselors to take notes, access email,
and collect data remotely when they
were working with youth at remote jail
sites. Back in Canada, we also raised
money for an operation for one of the
girls at the school, which had nothing
to do with our research and everything
to do with ethics.
By examining these ethical
questions as we plan and conduct our
research, we can, as a community, take
the necessary care to ensure that our
work has a positive impact and that
we are contributing in ways that are
important not just in our own minds
but also in the lives of the vulnerable
populations that our work is intending
to serve.
Endnotes
1. Antle, A. N. and Bevans, A. Creative
design: Exploring value propositions with
urban Nepalese children. In Advances in
Computer Entertainment, Lecture Notes
in Computer Science 7624 . A. Nijholt, T.
Romão, and D. Reidsma, eds. Springer,
Berlin/Heidelberg, 2012, 465–468.
2. Antle, A. N., Chesick, L., Levisohn,
A., Sridharan, S. K., and Tan P. Using
neurofeedback to teach self-regulation
to children living in poverty. Proc. of
Conference on Interaction Design for
Children. ACM Press, 2015, 119–128.
3. Watters, E. Crazy Like Us, the
Globalization of the American Psyche. Free
Press, Ne w York, 2010.
4. Antle, A. N., Chesick, L., Sridharan, S.K.,
and Levisohn, A. Learning self-regulation:
Can a brain computer interface help
children living in poverty? Personal and
Ubiquitous Computing. (under review).
Alissa Antle is a professor in the School
of Interactive Arts + Technology at
Simon Fraser University. Her work in
child-computer interaction pushes
the boundaries of computation to augment
the ways in which children develop, think,
and learn. In 2015 she was included in the Royal
Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars.
→
aantle@sfu.ca
they do not allow volunteers from
other countries to work directly with
the children at the orphanage. They
had seen a pattern where a child would
form an attachment to a foreigner. This
often created an expectation in the
child’s mind that the foreigner would
adopt the child, return to care for
them, or provide funding (i.e., perhaps
send them to a foreign boarding
school). This expectation often reduced
the child’s motivation to try and make
a better life for themselves. In addition,
children at the orphanage often became
emotionally attached to volunteers, and
when they left there was attachment
damage ( https://childtrauma.org/
wp-content/uploads/2013/11/
Bonding_ 13.pdf ).
In our study, to manage
expectations and reduce attachment
damage, none of the researchers on
my team worked directly with the
children in the Mind-Full intervention
sessions. Instead, we trained and
coached the counselors at the school
to run the sessions. While this may
have reduced the amount of control
we had over the intervention protocol,
ethically it seemed like the right
choice. Together with a Western-trained therapist, I spent the first
week of the sessions on site checking
that the intervention protocol was
being followed, being there to address
questions and provide coaching. Our
team then left the site, remaining
in email contact for several weeks,
returning to do another check-in and
to be present for the post assessment.
In this way, we avoided having the
children form attachments to us.
Fifth, what will we leave behind
when the research ends? The challenge
is thinking ahead and addressing
the legacy that should be left behind
when the research is complete. It
also includes asking if there are other
contributions outside of research that
can be made to the community in
which we are working.
One of the principles of the non-profit organization that runs the Nepali
school is that when people come from
developed countries, their role is to do
what is called capacity building. This
means transferring skills, knowledge,
and techniques to the Nepali staff
who work at the school, rather than
parachuting in, doing work, and
then leaving. We also felt that it was
important to ask the school what we
could leave behind and what they
wanted as a legacy.
We came up with a number of
legacy items. First, we spent the better
part of a week training all the teachers
and counselors to assess the children
rather than doing it ourselves. We co-created an assessment administration
manual with examples of observable
behaviors taken directly from the
school context. The ability to assess
the children using an observation-based survey instrument may improve
the staff’s capacity to set goals and
monitor the children’s progress in all
elements of their schooling. We also
spent a good deal of time with two
of the counselors explaining how the
What happens when the research is over.
DOI: 10.1145/3137107 COP YRIGHT HELD BY AUTHOR. PUBLICATION RIGHTS LICENSED TO ACM. $15.00