Información Reservada;

The researcher organised five workshops between July and November 2013 to demonstrate the learning system to potential participants and to recruit caregivers (parents, teachers and key workers) to help her evaluate the learning system. Details of the two workshops in July were circulated via email to caregivers known to the researcher and her colleagues and also to members of the Irish Society for Autism and Irish Autism Action via social media. Unfortunately these workshops were not well attended as some caregivers had prior commitments on those dates or were unable to engage specialised child minding services. However, on seeing the workshops advertised by the Society, Sligo HSE and Western Care Association contacted the researcher and offered her the opportunity to demonstrate the learning system to employees who provided advice on interventions for children diagnosed with ASDs to parents in their catchment areas.

Later in the year Sligo HSE invited the researcher to give a talk to a parents group from the Sligo-Donegal catchment area and demonstrate the learning system to parents who were interested in participating in case studies. The workshop schedule is outlined in Table 6.1.

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Table 6.1 Workshop Schedule 2013

Date Venue Time Caregivers

17 July 2013 Recital Hall, RIAM, Dublin 2 7.00 pm - 9.00 pm 0

20 July 2013 Recital Hall, RIAM, Dublin 2 11.00 am - 1.00 pm 4

29 July 2013 Sligo Health Service Executive 11.00 am - 1.00 pm 7

20 Aug 2013 Western Care Association Castlebar 12.00 pm - 1.30 pm 7

19 Nov 2013 Sligo Park Hotel 9.00 am - 3.00 pm 13

Over the succeeding months the researcher emailed the information sheet together with consent forms to approximately one hundred special schools and primary schools and secondary schools in the Dublin area known by the Society to cater for ASD students. Similarly the researcher contacted course directors running ABA classes and administrators in branches of the Carers Association of Ireland in an effort to find potential recruits. This recruitment drive unfortunately coincided with a period when the number of special needs personnel and resource hours in schools was being reduced. This meant that already stretched staff members were unable to take on any extra commitments. For this reason, although many of these caregivers registered and checked out the learning system, it was not possible for them to proceed with the evaluation process.

Information on this study continued to be publicised over the coming months by emailing registered users and through an information site that the researcher had created at URL: www.stakmate.com and the researcher’s contact details were also posted regularly on the Irish Autism Action’s Facebook page. The researcher also took the opportunity to meet parents and teachers attending the Autism Expo 2014 in November and distributed information on STAK to fifty interested parties on that day.

Since the numbers of potential recruits was still small at that stage the researcher decided to create online versions of all the forms and upload the links to the CMS so that the participants would be able to find everything they needed for the evaluation at a ‘one stop shop’. This proved to be a turning point in the study as participants became more engaged with the process as it no longer involved them having to download files and return completed questionnaires to the researcher by email or snail mail. Besides the

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online forms had a more user-friendly look and feel than their paper-based equivalents and so filling out the forms seemed less of a chore for them.

This adjustment to the online experience for caregivers also meant that the net could be cast wider to make it easier for participants living outside Ireland to take part in the case studies. At this point a member of the KDEG research group working in Qatar introduced some of his contacts in the autism service sector to the learning system through information days and workshops. This resulted in a number of these professionals and parents registering and agreeing to participate in the study. Around the same time another colleague in KDEG got permission from the principal of his primary school for the researcher to work with teachers and SNAs in the autism unit attached to the school.

After a long and difficult recruitment period thirty-eight registered users of the system agreed to participate in the case studies. All of these users either worked with or cared for a child who had been diagnosed with an ASD.

6.2.2 Ethical Considerations

Participants were given an outline of the research aims and the contents of the SCSS ethics policy which would be adhered to throughout the study. They were told that their participation would be completely voluntary and that they could withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. In the event that they withdrew from the study the researcher promised to remove all data relating to them from the study and not to include any reference to their data in the research documentation.

Participants were informed that there were no anticipated risks to their involvement in this research. Instead it was envisaged that they would benefit through being given the opportunity to experience new technologies which would be helpful to them in their work.

Each participant was asked to provide their own consent in writing by signing a consent form provided by the researcher (Appendix VII). It was also made clear to them that it was their responsibility to obtain consent from parents if they wished to include images of their pupils in any activities and to inform the researcher if he/she was employed by a school. In that event the permission would have to be obtained from the school principal

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or the board of management before the teacher and his/her pupils could take part in the case study.

The researcher confirmed that the data collected would be anonymised and an assurance was given that neither their own identities nor those of the children they were working with would be made known. Participants were also advised that the data would be stored in compliance with the Data Protection Act 2003 (Ireland). Participants were also informed that any data collected during the course of this project (and which might be entered into the dissertation of the researcher) would be held in the libraries of Trinity College Dublin for up to and exceeding seven years.

The researcher also made the participants aware that the documentation of the findings would be published and disclosed to a body of examiners in Trinity College Dublin as well as external examiners and that there might be lectures, PhD theses, conference presentations and peer-reviewed journal articles written as a result of this project. However they were assured that under no circumstances would identities of the caregivers or the children be revealed.

The researcher offered to hold a debriefing session after the findings of this project had been published to provide participants with the opportunity to examine how their contributions to the study have been used and interpreted, and to ensure that their contributions had not been used inaccurately or out of context.

Participants were informed that the researcher would be obliged to report any illegal activity that might be uncovered during the course of the study to the appropriate authorities. They were also advised that the researcher was not cognisant of any conflicts of interest regarding this research. However assurances were given that data collected during the project would not be used against any of the participants involved.

After fully informing the participants about the background to the research study and outlining the commitment involved, each person was asked to sign a consent form.

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