The Situated Assessment Method (SAM^2): Establishing Individual Differences in Habitual Behavior

From the perspectives of grounded, situated, and embodied cognition, we have developed a new approach for assessing individual differences. Because this approach is grounded in two dimensions of situatedness—situational experience and the Situated Action Cycle—we refer to it as the Situated Assessment Method (SAM2). Rather than abstracting over situations during assessment of a construct (as in traditional assessment instruments), SAM2 assesses a construct in situations where it occurs, simultaneously measuring factors from the Situated Action Cycle known to influence it. To demonstrate this framework, we developed the SAM2 Habitual Behavior Instrument (SAM2 HBI). Across three studies with a total of 442 participants, the SAM2 HBI produced a robust and replicable pattern of results at both the group and individual levels. Three trait-level measures of behavior regularity across 80 behaviors, 40 positive behaviors, and 40 negative behaviors exhibited large reliable individual differences. Several sources of evidence demonstrated the construct validity of these measures. At both the group and individual levels, the SAM2 measure of behavior regularity was associated with factors from the Situated Action Cycle known to influence habitual behavior in the literature (consistency, automaticity, immediate reward, long-term reward). Regressions explained approximately 65% of the variance at the group level and a median of approximately 75% at the individual level. The SAM2 measure of behavior regularity also exhibited well-established interactions with personality measures for self-control and neuroticism. Cognitive-affective processes from the Situated Action Cycle explained nearly all the variance in these interactions. Finally, a composite measure of habitualness established habitual behaviors at both the group and individual levels. Additionally, a composite measure of reward was strongly related to the composite measure of habitualness, increasing with self-control and decreasing with neuroticism.

Positionally-sensitive action-ascription

Schegloff (1996) has argued that grammars are “positionally-sensitive”, implying that the situated use and understanding of linguistic formats depends on their sequential position. Analyzing the German format Kannst du X? (corresponding to English Can you X?) based on 82 instances from a large corpus of talk-in-interaction (FOLK), this paper shows how different action-ascriptions to turns using the same format depend on various orders of context. We show that not only sequential position, but also epistemic status, interactional histories, multimodal conduct, and linguistic devices co-occurring in the same turn are decisive for the action implemented by the format. The range of actions performed with Kannst du X? and their close interpretive interrelationship suggest that they should not be viewed as a fixed inventory of context-dependent interpretations of the format. Rather, the format provides for a root-interpretation that can be adapted to local contextual contingencies, yielding situated action-ascriptions that depend on constraints created by contexts of use.

Enhancing In Situ Observation with the SCI Design (Shadowing–Conversations–Interview to the Double) to Capture the Cognitive Underpinnings of Action

In situ observation methods have essentially been mobilized to study actors’ doings, but they have also been mobilized (through studies in the stream of situated action) to study cognition in these same organizational actors. The existing methodological designs have helped to enhance our knowledge of certain cognitive underpinnings, but they carry two limits: (1) they are deployed following a stacking logic, that is, by triangulation, which is more about compensating for the weaknesses of the component methods than uniting their strengths, and which has the pitfall of capturing cognition and action separately; and (2) they cannot capture all the situated and structuring facets of the cognitive underpinnings of action. Here we propose to overcome these barriers with the SCI design: S for shadowing, C for conversions, and I for an interview borrowing on the ‘interview to the double’ technique. This design is built in a synergy-guided effort that hinges on tightly meshing these three techniques together at fieldwork deployment. This articulation makes it possible to capture action and cognition together and to surface both the situated and structuring facets of cognition underpinning action. The SCI design is easy enough to deploy in fieldwork across a whole range of research settings.

Learning in Finnish Social Work Practice and Research

Accepting Bartlett’s vision of social work’s evolution resulting from action research, the article argues that in Finland, extensive action research is occurring, and this is resulting in service innovations. However, little of this research is published in academic journals and has only limited dissemination. Drawing on data from new interviews with experienced social workers in the City of Tampere, Finland, the article details the nature and extent of action research by social workers. A new framework with which to analyse action research from the logic-of-practice is used to show not only how extensive the action research is, but also how readily situated action research can be analysed from a broader perspective, making dissemination easier.

Crossing Human Factors Research and Business Intelligence

Starting from business intelligence (BI) reference models, this work proposes to extend the multi-dimensional data modelling approach to integrate human factors (HF)-related dimensions. The overall goal is to promote a fine grain understanding of the derived key performance indicators (KPIs) through an enhanced characterization of the operational level of work context. HF research has traditionally approached critical domains and complex socio-technical systems with a chief consideration of human situated action. Grounded on a review of the body of knowledge of the HF field, this work proposes the business intelligence for human factors (BI4HF) framework. It intends to provide guidance on pertinent data identification, collection methods, modelling, and integration within a BI project endeavour. BI4HF foundations are introduced, and a use case on a manufacturing industry organization is presented. The outcome of the enacted BI project referred in the use case allowed new analytical capabilities regarding newly derived and existing KPIs related to operational performance, providing insight into the value of the BI4HF framework.

Our curious silence about kindness in planning: Challenges of addressing vulnerability and suffering

Discussions of “justice” in planning are commonplace; discussions of “kindness,” strangely enough, are rare. Perhaps not by accident. Taking “compassion” as an empathetic, intentional orientation toward suffering, we analyze “kindness” as the situated action of compassion that requires—following and extending analysis of Martha Nussbaum—four contingent, contextually sensitive practical judgments: (1) empathetic recognition of another’s vulnerability or suffering; (2) causal/moral gauging of the sources of that vulnerability or suffering; (3) crafting of acts to mitigate that vulnerability/suffering, and (4) forming the motivation to respond practically to that Other’s situation. Diverse planning cases from Cleveland, the Canadian Yukon, and Australia illuminate these practical judgments. We show how these contingent judgments can go wrong and thereby produce not kindness but humiliation, shame and victim blaming, pity and condescension, or dependency not autonomy. In doing so, the article makes a fresh contribution toward analyzing the moral requirements of, and the risks faced in, any planning seeking to respond to others’ vulnerabilities and suffering.

Understanding Meaningful Participation and the Situated Use of Technology in Community Music for Active Ageing

An unfortunate tendency in previous HCI research has been to give the impression that it aims to ‘fix the problem’ of human ageing, suggesting a ‘deficit’ model of ageing or a ‘prosthetic’ model of technology. We conducted diary-aided interviews to investigate how technology use is situated in active, healthy older adults’ meaningful participation in community music. We argue that recognizing community music practices and technology use as situated action provides opportunities to grasp the subtleties of social participation and design for active ageing. We identified technology-mediated music practices, such as music sharing and revisiting, and how they evolved through the reconfiguration of connections between technology, competence, and forward-facing identities. We found that identity development, via routes such as exercising control, role transitions, and social spaces, had psychological significance and implications for active ageing. We explore how HCI leverages the perspective of active ageing and might facilitate older adults’ meaningful participation enhanced by technologies.