Growing up in a digital world: the school environment

The mental health and wellbeing of young people is a pressing societal concern. Rates of probable mental disorders have increased over the past few years. In 2020, one in six children in England aged 5 to 16 years were identified as having a probable mental disorder, increasing from one in nine in 2017 (NHS Digital, 2020).

It is estimated that half of all lifetime cases of diagnosable mental health problems in the United Kingdom, like anxiety and depression, begin before the age of 14 years (Kessler et al, 2008). The need for mental health support for adolescents will be at an all-time high following COVID-19. More young people than ever will need support as a result of isolation and life pressures. In addition, existing service users have experienced a decrease in support due to the temporary closure or reduction in service provisions.

Young people spend a significant part of their lives at school and digital technology is increasingly becoming part of the fabric of the school environment. Digital technology could provide opportunities to support young people with their mental health, however, the increasing use of technology in schools for communication, surveillance and assessment may also present unforeseen risks to their emotional wellbeing.

Research is being undertaken to better understand the experience and impact of technology in schools on young people’s mental health and wellbeing and researchers in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield are working on a project to understand young people’s views on the potential and risk of digital technology in schools, called Hacking the system.

According to Dr Katherine Easton, Lecturer in Psychology in the School of Education, the main aim of the project is to understand young people’s experience of the Internet of Things (physical objects embedded with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the internet), specifically in a secondary school environment through two qualitative co-creation hacks. In schools this could include smart building, transport, digital writing, audio or visual technology.

The research will be undertaken with the following methods:

LANDSCAPING ACTIVITY

A rapid scoping review to map the existing position and provisions in respect of the Internet of Things (IoT) in UK secondary school settings.

CO-CREATION HACKS

Once the review has been undertaken and key themes identified, there will be two co-creation hack activities with Y11 pupils from a local secondary school. Wireframe prototypes will be created for IoT devices that the students identify as adding values to their mental health and wellbeing in a school context.

The core activity will comprise ‘hacking’ a virtual school whereby participants create both an optimistic and a dystopian school environment — one that has a positive impact on their mental health and wellbeing and one that they would seek to avoid. The final output of the hacks will be a series of simple prototypes and a blueprint for a mentally healthy IoT enabled school.

EXPERT PANEL REVIEW

An expert panel, including adults and young people, will review the outputs from the hack activities and provide insights on three themes: (a) feasibility (b) desirability (c)evidence / efficacy. Overall, the project will demonstrate knowledge exchange and co-production.

The landscape activity, outputs from the co-creation hacks, blueprint and expert feedback will be written up as a final report, slide deck and animation which can be used for future research bids and to assist industry in efforts to develop appropriate products and services that promote mental health in school environments.

DISSEMINATION WEBINAR

Finally, the team will hold an online webinar to disseminate the results with a range of stakeholders in research, schools, and in industry.

“In all our co-production research, we adopt a creative co-design approach to enable meaningful participation by all key stakeholders,” said Dr Easton.

The team will employ the Children’s Design Guide principles to ensure effective and ethical co-production with the young people involved in the project.

This research is kindly funded by the enurture network: ES/S004467/1

Dr Katherine Easton is Course director on MA Psychology and Education. For more information on the project contact k.a.easton@sheffield.ac.uk.

References
NHS Digital (2020) Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2020: Wave 1 follow up to the 2017 survey. https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2020-wave-1-follow-up#chapter-index Accessed on 6.10.2021

Kessler, R. C., Amminger, G. P., Aguilar-Gaxiola, S., Alonso, J., Lee, S., & Ustün, T. B. (2007). Age of onset of mental disorders: a review of recent literature. Current opinion in psychiatry, 20(4), 359–364. https://doi.org/10.1097/YCO.0b013e32816ebc8c