Handwashing prevalence in schools in Kenya is low due to lack of access to water and soap and lack of drive for handwashing. Soapy water made from detergent powder is an inexpensive alternative to ...bar soap and disgust and social norms change can be powerful drivers of handwashing, but their effectiveness has not been assessed in school setting. In Kenyan public schools, we evaluated an equipment-behavior change intervention's effect on handwashing outcomes. We also monitored functionality of the Povu Poa prototypes to identify design improvements necessary for continued high usage in institutional settings.
The intervention included the "Povu Poa", a new type of handwashing station that dispensed foaming soap and rinse water, combined with school-wide behavior change promotion based on disgust and social norms. In this stepped-wedge cluster-randomized trial, we randomly selected 30 schools and divided them into 3 groups of 10. Following baseline data collection, we delivered the intervention sequentially (Group 1: 3-5 weeks after baseline; Group 2: 6-8 weeks; Group 3: 19-24 weeks). We observed outcomes 1 availability of handwashing materials at handwashing places, and; 2) observed handwashing behavior after toilet use among schoolchildren) at baseline and in three follow-up rounds. We compared the outcomes between schools that had received the intervention and schools that had not yet received the intervention.
Water and soap/soapy water were available at 2% of school visits before intervention, and at 42% of school visits after intervention.. Before intervention, we observed handwashing with water after 11% of 461 toilet use events; no one was observed to wash hands with soap/soapy water. After intervention, we observed handwashing after 62% of 383 toilet use events (PR = 5.96, 95% CI = 3.02, 11.76) and handwashing with soap/soapy water after 26% of events (PR incalculable). Foaming soap dispenser caps were cracked in 31% of all observations, but were typically still functional.
Our combined equipment-behavior intervention increased availability of handwashing materials and improved the compliance with handwashing after using the toilet, but handwashing with soap was still rare. Equipment durability must be improved for deployment in schools at scale. American Economic Association's Registry for Randomized Controlled Trials; Trial Registry Number (TRN): AEARCTR-0000662; Date of Registry: April 14, 2015.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The new handwashing system, designed with end user input, features an economical foaming soap dispenser and a hygienic, water-efficient tap for use in household and institutional settings that lack ...reliable access to piped water. Cost of the soap and water needed for use is less than US$0.10 per 100 handwash uses, compared with US$0.20–$0.44 for conventional handwashing stations used in Kenya.
The new handwashing system, designed with end user input, features an economical foaming soap dispenser and a hygienic, water-efficient tap for use in household and institutional settings that lack reliable access to piped water. Cost of the soap and water needed for use is less than US$0.10 per 100 handwash uses, compared with US$0.20–$0.44 for conventional handwashing stations used in Kenya.
This thesis characterizes the feedback between the instructor and student teams engaged in a Virtual Bioreactor (VBioR) Laboratory Project. The project allows senior-level chemical, biological, and ...environmental engineering students to apply their developing knowledge and skills in an industrially situated process optimization project. Feedback is an important tool for instructors to use to scaffold student learning, especially in the context of an ill-structured project. An ethnographic approach is taken for data collection; audio recordings and field notes are taken throughout the duration of the project. The characterization of feedback uses an episodes framework for discourse analysis to consider similarities and differences. Using this framework, thematic codes have been developed through a semi-emergent process to describe the content of Design Memo Meetings (DMMs) between an instructor and student teams. Student work products, post-DMM surveys, and post-project interviews are also considered as data sources for this research. The results of this research show that instructor feedback in this project is adaptable, conforming to the status of the student team at the beginning of the DMM. This adaptability is highlighted by differences in DMM themes that are supported by differences in the Design Strategy Memos that student teams bring to the meeting. Student perceptions of the DMM feedback are also presented.
Graduation date: 2013
A Study of Feedback Provided to Student Teams Engaged in Open-Ended ProjectsIn this research paper, we continue our investigation of feedback in open-ended projects basedon industrially-situated ...virtual laboratories. Feedback has been found to be one of the mostimportant factors for educational achievement. We believe it is especially valuable in open-ended projects where student teams can proceed along multiple paths. Our industrially-situatedVirtual Laboratory projects provide a unique learning environment for the study of feedback dueto the instructional design and to the variation in student teams, project types, and instructors.Previous work has compared four student teams working on a single Virtual Laboratory projectand has shown that feedback varies widely for each of the four teams. This work extends thestudy to examine the coaching sessions from an entire cohort of 29 student teams working onthree different virtual laboratory projects. The findings demonstrate that feedback in an open-ended team project is dynamic and tailored to a team’s approach. There also are generaldifferences due to instructor and project content. This study seeks to characterize how feedbackis approached for different student teams, projects, and instructors within a similar instructionaldesign.The 29 student teams studied are in their final year of a chemical, biological and environmentalengineering undergraduate program. The students self-selected their teams and then chose towork on the Virtual Chemical Vapor Deposition (VCVD) or on one of two Virtual Bioreactor(VBioR) Laboratory projects. The students were tasked with defining a set of optimal inputparameters to manufacture a quality, consistent product within budgetary constraints. As a partof the three-week project, students were required to meet twice with a faculty member. Twofaculty members, a CVD domain expert and a bioprocesses domain expert, provided feedback tostudent teams during these scheduled 30 minute “coaching sessions.” The coaching sessions arevital for providing feedback to the student groups. The coach is able to assess the team’s currentapproach, help incorporate concepts from prior courses and guide the students to improve theirstrategy.Data sources include video recordings, student work products, and researcher observation notes.Recording transcripts for each team are analyzed from the first coaching session, in which thecoach provided feedback regarding the team’s initial experimental strategy for the project. Weuse an episodes framework to analyze the feedback by breaking down the discourse into thematicunits having a clear beginning and ending point. This method allows for the identification of theprimary themes of the coaching session and for comparison of how the feedback proceeded foreach student group. By examining a larger group of student teams than previously studied, weare able to address the following research questions: What are the most prevalent themes andtypes of themes that occur in the coaching sessions? How do these themes vary among studentteams working on the different Virtual Laboratory projects? How does the coach’s feedbackcompare and contrast for different student teams and across the different projects? And finally,what do the findings imply about the nature of feedback in open-ended projects?
Feedback in Complex, Authentic, Industrially Situated Engineering Projects using Episodes as a Discourse Analysis Framework – Year 2AbstractOver the last seven years, we have developed, implemented, ...and studied student learning incyber-enabled learning systems. Central to each of these learning systems is a virtual reactor thatenables a team of students to develop, test, and refine solutions as they are tasked withdeveloping an optimal “recipe” for one of two virtual reactors. The two virtual reactors include:the Virtual Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) Reactor, a simulation of an industrial-scalechemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactor, and the Virtual Bio Reactor, based on an industrialscale bioreactor process. These learning systems provide students a capstone experience in whichthey can apply experimental design in a context similar to that of a practicing engineer.Throughout students’ engagement with a learning system, student teams meet with an instructor,called the coach. The student-coach interactions are different from those in traditional classroomsettings. The students and coach interact in semi-structured design meetings, called coachingsessions, which mirror the structure of industrial design reviews. Students take on the role ofprocess development engineers while the coach acts as mentor and manager. We have learnedthat feedback provided by the coach during these interactions is critical to the success of thelearning systems. For effective implementation of these learning systems at other institutions,there is a need to describe the characteristics of successful feedback and the effects of thatfeedback on student learning. This poster will present the recent findings of the investigation intothe nature of the feedback provided by the coach to the student teams and the relationship of thatfeedback to the strategies students apply as they engage in the task, the models they develop, andtheir knowledge integration of material from previous courses. Specifically, the researchquestions for this stage of the study are: 1. What are the different types of feedback coaches provide and what characteristics distinguish the different types of feedback? 2. What is the relationship between coach feedback and the development of the experimental models and strategies students apply as they work to complete the assigned task?Qualitative assessment data sources include recordings of introductory lectures, coachingsessions, and final oral reports; think-aloud sessions of student teams as they work on the task;student work products, including their design notebooks, written memoranda and reports, oralreports, records of experimentation from the database; and interviews of individual students. Weuse an episodes framework to examine the characteristics of feedback during the coachingsessions. Each episode is defined by the content that is addressed (e.g., reaction kinetics), calledthe episode theme. Each theme is composed of up to four stages: surveying, probing, guiding,and confirmation. A coaching session typically contains approximately 10-20 episodes. Inaddition, we use a method called Model Maps to represent student groups’ model developmentas they complete the task. Model Maps are used to identify teams’ models and strategies and areinterpreted in terms of the guidance the team received during the coaching sessions. Thedifferences noted before and after coaching sessions are interpreted with reference to theepisodes analysis.
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