Thesis
Investigating older adults' willingness to adopt assistive technology for personal use
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2013
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/100195
Abstract
Research has shown that older adults tend to resist using assistive technology (e.g. hearing or mobility aids). Many people who could experience an improved quality of life from their features avoid using the devices. One reason is thought to be that assistive technology can make a hidden health condition more visible. Potential users may fear that the negative social consequences of health stigma will outweigh the benefits. Overcoming initial resistance can enable assistive technology use and an improved quality of life. This project experimentally tests two strategies for overcoming barriers to adoption of technology to present a health-assistive “Smart Home” environment. Each of eighty older adult volunteers watched one of two videos showing either the Smart Home’s functional benefits specifically for older adults, or its universal benefits for a wide range of healthy and younger people. Participants then took a fifteen-question survey including a measure of their willingness to adopt the Smart Home for personal use, and other factors which further explored their reasons for accepting or rejecting the system. I predicted that acceptance would be higher for participants in the universal design condition than in the functional condition. This hypothesis was not supported. Instead, acceptance was higher in v the functional condition. However, the predicted intervening variable of comfort with others seeing the technology in the participants’ home had a strong effect, which supports the relationship between the intervening variable and willingness to adopt the Smart Home. Perceptions of usefulness as a health-assistive system, usability by a wide variety of people, and participants’ comfort with others seeing the sensors in their home mediated the effect of the experimental condition on acceptance. These results suggest that further investigation into increasing users’ comfort with others seeing assistive technology devices may lead to better ways of presenting them as viable solutions for older adults who want to age in place.
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Details
- Title
- Investigating older adults' willingness to adopt assistive technology for personal use
- Creators
- Brice Daniel Darras
- Contributors
- Christine Horne (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Sociology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525190801842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis