Older adults’ reasons to participate in digital skills learning: An interdisciplinary, multiple case study from Austria, Finland, and Germany

Pihlainen, Kaisa; Ehlers, Anja; Rohner, Rebekka; Černá, Kateřina; Kärnä, Eija; Heß, Moritz; Hengl, Lisa; Aavikko, Lotta; Frewer-Graumann, Susanne; Gallistl, Vera; Müller, Cláudia

doi:10.1080/02660830.2022.2133268

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The research project at hand, ACCESS [14], which aimed to design tools to help older adults access the digital world more easily, adopted a PD approach, which is less about a particular data collection or analysis techniques than it is concerned with an attitude or set of values that shape the design project [15,16]. These values were originally focused on Scandinavian concerns with social democracy, participation, and workplace empowerment but also included ideas about the situated character of design, designing for specific settings, developing common understandings, mutual learning, equality, and appreciation [17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Practices of Care in Participatory Design With Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Digitally Mediated Study

Paluch¹,

Černá²,

Kirschsieper³

et al. 2023

J Med Internet Res

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Background Participatory Design (PD), albeit an established approach in User-Centered Design, comes with specific challenges when working with older adults as research participants. Addressing these challenges relates to the reflection and negotiation of the positionalities of the researchers and research participants and includes various acts of giving and receiving help. During the COVID-19 pandemic, facets of positionalities and (mutual) care became particularly evident in qualitative and participatory research settings. Objective The aim of this paper was to systematically analyze care practices of participatory (design) research, which are to different extents practices of the latter. Using a multiyear PD project with older people that had to take place remotely over many months, we specify different practices of care; how they relate to collaborative work in the design project; and represent foundational practices for sustainable, long-term co-design. Our research questions were “How can digitally-mediated PD work during COVID-19 and can we understand such digital PD as ‘care’?” Methods Our data comes from the Joint Programming Initiative “More Years, Better Lives” (JPI MYBL), a European Union project that aims to promote digital literacy and technology appropriation among older adults in domestic settings. It targeted the cocreation, by older adults and university researchers, of a mobile demo kit website with cocreated resources, aimed at improving the understanding of use options of digital tools. Through a series of workshops, a range of current IT products was explored by a group of 21 older adults, which served as the basis for joint cocreative work on generating design ideas and prototypes. We reflect on the PD process and examine how the actors enact and manifest care. Results The use of digital technology allowed the participatory project to continue during the COVID-19 pandemic and accentuated the digital skills of older adults and the improvement of digital literacy as part of “care.” We provide empirically based evidence of PD with older adults developing digital literacy and sensitizing concepts, based on the notion of care by Tronto for differentiating aspects and processes of care. The data suggest that it is not enough to focus solely on the technologies and how they are used; it is also necessary to focus on the social structures in which help is available and in which technologies offer opportunities to do care work. Conclusions We document that the cocreation of different digital media tools can be used to provide a community with mutual care. Our study demonstrates how research participants effectively enact different forms of care and how such “care” is a necessary basis for a genuinely participatory approach, which became especially meaningful as a form of support during COVID-19. We reflect on how notions of “care” and “caring” that were central to the pandemic response are also central to PD.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Practices of Care in Participatory Design With Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Digitally Mediated Study

Paluch¹,

Černá²,

Kirschsieper³

et al. 2023

J Med Internet Res

Self Cite

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“…Exploring this direction further, rather exploratory analyses indicate that in the case of participation in EU-funded training, there is indeed a higher participation of older people (M = 44.19 versus the average age of non-attendees: M = 41.03). This could lead to the conclusion that older people take advantage of the opportunity to develop their competencies more readily than younger people, e.g., due to their professional position as well as ongoing changes in the labour market (Li et al, 2023;Martínez-Alcalá et al, 2021), caused, for example, by technological changes (Pihlainen et al, 2023). In contrast, the fact of having benefi ted from any EU funding dominates as regards younger people (M = 41.03 versus the average age of those who do not: M = 44.16).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

European Union Funds – Application Perspective

Dubel,

Majczyk

2024

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The result of an effective management of the redistribution of European Union funds should be a reduction of disparities between EU regions by guaranteeing their comprehensive and harmonious development and supporting the economic and social cohesion of member countries. A poorly-conducted programming process of ﬁnancial interventionism, the source of which is EU funds, may result in divergence between regions, the direct effect of which would be their social and economic marginalisation. For this reason, it is important to skillfully manage those funds. The main aim of this article is to present the factors affecting the decision-making process of the use of EU co-ﬁnancing, and that includes the pandemic as an external variable being a threat to the implementation of investments from the EU’s structural funds. To explain the multivariate associations between explanatory variables and the binary outcome variables, logistic regression was employed. Based on the tests’ results, signiﬁcant associations were observed between the dependent variable and (a) participation in training co-ﬁnanced by EU funds, (b) receiving information regarding additional EU funds as pandemic support, and (c) the suspension of planned investments using EU funds due to the pandemic situation. A comprehensive distribution of respondents according to the response categories in the analysed variables within the entire sample (N = 950) was presented. Corresponding associations were evident within a sub-sample (N = 303). The model showed that all signiﬁcant independent variables explain the use of EU funds, but the model explains just 28.6% of the decision to use the funds. Thus, the following study indicates directions that require further research.

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“…Offering digital learning sessions and strategies to increase their competence is a way to enhance digital agency 24 . Older adults might use technologies for necessity or for leisure so that developing safe and engaging learning environments that meet their preferred needs is critical 18,19 . There are few programs that tailor ICT learning to older adults from these communities and IROAs abandon using ICTs, give up on learning about them or creatively use modifications to navigate barriers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Data collection included two phases: Phase one involved individual (n=8) and group (n=2) semistructured interviews to explore older immigrants' experiences of using ICTs and phase two centered on digital learning sessions where observations and focus group discussions allowed for detailed documentation of IROA's digital competencies and learning needs. Triangulation of data sources over a period of time allows access to descriptively rich insights on technology use in older age 19,28 . Individual interviews were conducted in participants' homes from April to June 2022 by an Arabic-speaking interviewer and lasted on average 1-1.5 hours.…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Enhancing the benefits accrued using ICT not only requires improving technological skills and knowledge but, also, understanding the attitudinal and socio-emotional aspects of technology utilization 17 . Older adults are willing to adopt technology that is deemed beneficial to them and that has positive implications for their daily life 6,18,19 . Canada continues to welcome high numbers of immigrants and refugees with an increasing percentage from Arabic-speaking countries 20 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring Digital Agency and Digital Competence of Immigrant and Refugee Older Adults: A Qualitative Study (Preprint)

Salma,

Au,

Sayadi

et al. 2024

Preprint

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UNSTRUCTURED Digital agency refers to an individual's ability to use information and communication technology to meet personal preferences and needs, while also ensuring safety, security, and independence. However, the concept of digital agency for immigrant and refugee older adults (IROA) has not been thoroughly studied. This research employed a qualitative descriptive approach, using the DigComp 2.2 framework, to explore this topic. A total of 31 IROAs were recruited and participated in the study, which involved semi-structured interviews, focus groups, observations, and iterative co-design cycles. Through reflexive thematic data analysis, patterns in the research were identified. The findings revealed that the digital agency of IROAs is influenced by their access to information, engagement in digital communication, and ability to troubleshoot. Participants also faced challenges in exercising agency in a post-migration context due to intersecting barriers of digital competence and language skills, which impeded their access to resources and services for aging in place. This study highlights the urgent need to address the specific learning requirements of IROAs in order to prevent their marginalization and digital exclusion. Thus, it is essential to develop accessible and engaging group-based educational initiatives that cater to the unique needs of older immigrants.

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Older adults’ reasons to participate in digital skills learning: An interdisciplinary, multiple case study from Austria, Finland, and Germany

Cited by 11 publications

References 38 publications

Practices of Care in Participatory Design With Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Digitally Mediated Study

Practices of Care in Participatory Design With Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Digitally Mediated Study

European Union Funds – Application Perspective

Exploring Digital Agency and Digital Competence of Immigrant and Refugee Older Adults: A Qualitative Study (Preprint)

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