Main discussion thread: using sensors in social science research

I am very sorry to hear about the badge reliabilty issues. We have had similar experiences, which is why are are now working with smartwatches instead, see 

www.happimeter.org

and 

https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.06134

Dear Peter

Can you tell us more about the reliability issues you have had with the badges measuring proximity, face to face etc? 

Anne

well, we just found that the readings were somewhat inconsistent, so we had to aggregate actors on the day or even week or month level

hallo to everybody, i just joined the conversation and I am interested in the topic.

I had a look at the Gedii study and the results are interesting and must have involved a lot of work!

my observations are mostly based on theoretical aspects in the measurement of turn taking. first, i wanted to know if the Geddi group had a reference with research works using measurementes in conversational analysis.

I know there are some applications of social network to standard F2F conversations in the area of social psychology but those are 'old technology research' and studies were performed without sensors measurement. Still they  could be of help for developing new indexes.

have you considered that area of research?

yes Joerg, shared protocals are important because the metrics between badges, and between Pebble smartwatches and Andorid watches are not directly comparable. right now our consolidation between Pebble and Android watch happens on the server through machine learning

... is very hardware dependent, or instance the sociometic badges have to microphones to see if the wearer or somebody else speaks, Sandy Pentland's team also has new badges where it is done diferently (I do not know how), and we do it very simply by looking who is close, and whose watch reports the loudest speech.

Yes, Joerg, this is a good idea, it will be a bit cumbersome to collect the training data, but for a controlled environment this should give more accurate results.

I also find useful from the theoretical perspective research works in the ethnomedology area. they can be rather complex and too detailed but could give nice clues on how to interpret turn taking in conversations, how to construct measurement indexes that might have a social - and in this case a gender specific - relevance.

sorry, I forgot to introduce myself: francesca odella from trento university, I have worked on the issue from theoretical perspective as I am not a technical expert on sensors but they interest me from the point of view of social and interactional impact. 

From current and previous research, the question of the validity of the data seems clearly under question. 

My understanding of reliability is that it is about difficulties of measuring something with precision and/or low replicability over time. 

What about validity? Are sensors telling us something about interactions, even if ever so imperfectly?

And what implications for data analysis? Can we still say something meaningful using these data while waiting for better sensors?

Anne

Dear colleagues,  I am following the discussion from the sidelines - this is definitely not my field! But it is till deeply interesting, because the use of technology to improve perception of human interaction seems to be evolving fast.

I am a senior adviser in the Norwegian Committee for Gender Balance and Diversity in research, i.e. a practitioner. I have, in the past, worked with methods to document discrimination, and have worked with situation testing and national/European discussions on documenting inequality and discrimination through statistics, qualitative and quantitative methods. In my present job I try to disseminate knowledge on research and available data when discussing equality in higher education.

I recently was asked about what methods exist to measure gender differences in participation in meetings, and referred to the Swedish Research Councils observers who used the app "Time to talk". I understand participants in this discussion are using badges or watches to register speech and interaction - possibly also the proximity of others. I understand your methods of measurement are mainly for research. Do you know of less sophisticated methods available for institutions that want to make sure men and women are given equal speaking time, i.e. monitoring, not research? I can imagine resistance to monitoring on ethical grounds, but some people working with appointment boards are considering such methods. See this link if you are not familiar with this example I referred to from Sweden http://kifinfo.no/en/2017/09/thanks-observers-committees-gave-more-money...

thanks to Jorg for the invitation and thanks to all for the conversation.

all very intersting and updadated topics including the suggestions from Ella (I have seen different strategies to keep turn taking in public discussions but never actually reflect on them).

so even if I do not directly work on sensors if there were another session please do keep me posted about. sorry for those who could not partecipate, it is a pity that the platform had some tecnical problems.