The Delft University of Technology wants their teachers to create and publish Open Educational Resources (OER). And even though they have an OER policy in place, creating and publishing OER is not yet a common practice. Therefore, this research aims to answer the question “How can a communication tool be used to help increase the creation and/or publishing of (little) OER at the Industrial Design Engineering faculty?”. It does so by taking a design-based approach and using the double diamond method.

This thesis starts by using literature to create a combined framework which combined the reasoned action approach with the OER adoption pyramid. This combined framework showed multiple factors that are relevant in influencing the motivation of teachers to create or publish OER. These motivational factors were incorporated into the questions and topics that were discussed in the semi structured interviews. The outcome of the interviews was compiled into a causal loop diagram that showed how different factors influence the willingness of teachers to create or publish OER. The causal loop diagram also showed how some factors could be both a driver and barrier depending on the situation. Based on the interview results the critical nodes were identified in the causal loop diagram. The critical nodes being: available time, perceived institutional support, perceive time and effort it cost to publish OER, clarity in expectations of OER, social responsibility to create/publish OER, Sharing ER with colleagues.

Using the critical nodes, a design goal was formulated. This design goal resulted in the design of a roadmap that laid out the phases in which the TU Delft can support IDE teachers in publishing their educational resources as open educational resources. The first phase addresses the creation of a designated support team and spreading awareness about OER. The second phase outlines that teachers first publish in a closed system, since sharing their material with colleagues is something teachers already do. During the second phase the educational material will also be improved via peer-to-peer feedback and the support team will ensure the quality. In the final phase the material will be published as open educational resource.

In conclusion, using this roadmap should make it easier to increase the creation and publication of OER at the IDE faculty by lowering barriers for teachers and playing into teachers’ drivers. For further research, it is recommended to validate the design and look into possible differences between teachers for master and bachelor courses.

Train drivers are challenged to stay alert during train driving, for a big part due to the limited amount of tasks, and monotony of tasks. Driver condition monitoring (DCM) is a technology that involves measuring the driver’s alertness state in real-time, in which use of eye-based measurements is considered. Since DCM’s are upcoming in car and truck industry, train operators are now also showing interest in this technology to improve alertness. New technologies however are often resisted in railway operator companies, shown by strikes and works council involvement, and currently, it is unknown how drivers recognize and deal with alertness in the first place. Also for implementing DCM’s in the future, it is unknown what is required for such DCM feedback designs for acceptance to be promoted. This research thus aims to investigate how acceptance of train drivers can be promoted in a DCM feedback system. Considering a DCM system that can measure eye-directions, blinking behavior and gaze fixations, theoretical insights propose that you can use these measurements to infer driver distraction, sleepiness and mind-wandering. Theoretical approaches towards acceptance of technologies are generally focused on influencing the in-tention to use a technology. Generally used is Technology Acceptance model for evaluating acceptance of various technologies, proposing that the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are important to model an intention to use, and actual use of such DCM technology.
An explorative, qualitative approach led to conducting focus groups with train drivers and office employees to investigate the sensitive topic of alertness. In total, four train drivers and four office employees participated. To analyze the results qualitatively, thematic analysis was performed by coding iteratively. For current alertness strategies, the results showed that drivers recognize sleepiness the most, while fatigue and mind-wandering (task-related tiredness) are perceived as similar to sleepiness. Distraction was not recognized, as they are occupied more with a ’distributing’ and ’prioritizing’ their attention. Designing DCM feedback in a way that promotes acceptance is proposed to consider how drivers find a device useful, how their perceptions of autonomy and competence are influenced, and how to foster the trust towards the organization with respect to data use. The conclusions call for considering both rational factors (perceived usefulness) and affective factors (as a feeling of competence and autonomy might be related to intrinsic motivation) in the design of alertness feedback systems for train drivers.

Transdisciplinary research can be a powerful means to achieve a change in society. This participatory form of research is becoming increasingly common in climate and energy research. However, transdisciplinary research can be challenging. Which role should a researcher adopt when collaborating with societal actors? This master thesis focuses on challenges around transdisciplinary researcher-roles at a specific academic research institute: the Center for climate and energy transformation (CET) at the University of Bergen in Norway. Through design-based research, the thesis developed a tool that can help starting researchers at CET (students and PhD-candidates) to reflect on these challenges. First, a descriptive case-study at CET analyzed which challenges researchers at CET face, using semi-structured interviews, logbooks and focus groups. Next, the research designed a reflection tool, using brainstorming techniques, prototype evaluations session and a test session. The resulting reflection tool is a card-game that makes CET-researchers exchange ideas about which roles to adopt in a playful way. Through the game, the CET-researchers learn a new language with which they can talk about researcher roles. They widen their repertoire to think and speak about what they want to contribute to transdisciplinary collaborations and how they can do that. This can help them when making role-divisions in researcher-teams and when discussing expectations with collaboration partners. Helping the academic changemaker reflect on their role in transdisciplinary collaboration – it is a crucial step towards creating more conscious and purposeful collaborations with the ability to transform society in the face of climate change.

Research on the possibilities to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the Operating Room (OR) is rising, although there is no implementation yet. AI-assisted monitoring could provide support to anesthesia assistants in their task of patient monitoring, by making predictions on the future occurrence of deviating events in the vital parameter values of the patient. As AI-assisted monitoring would come close the profession of anesthesia assistants, this explorative, qualitative research investigates the attitude of anesthesia assistants towards the use of AI in their task of patient monitoring. Furthermore, it investigates the motivational factors that are important for their motivation in their monitoring task as well as the expected impact of AI on their motivation. This design-based research subsequently describes how these results are incorporated into the development of an educational module about AI and motivation for anesthesia assistants. Gaining as well as giving insight in the motivation of anesthesia assistants is important, as their motivation is of impact on their professional behaviour while their decisions and actions are directly related to the safety of the patient.

Through literature research and semi-structured interviews, it was found that among anesthesia assistants there is little knowledge on the possibilities of AI at the OR, but that their attitude towards AI-assisted monitoring is positive as long as only suggestions are given. Only two out of eight anesthesia assistants are cautiously positive towards the possibility of AI to automate the monitoring process. Furthermore, it was found that the motivational factors of autonomy, relatedness, competence, self-efficacy, and self-actualisation are all important to very important in the motivation of anesthesia assistants. Overall, none of these factors stands out in being most or least important. The expected impact of AI on these motivational factors among anesthesia assistants varies from negative to positive and is highly dependent on the form of AI-assisted monitoring. As various forms of interrelatedness between all these motivational factors are identified by the anesthesia assistants, specific to their working practice and environment, the impact on one motivational factor might indirectly also impact others.

These results on attitude and motivation are incorporated in the design of an educational module for anesthesia assistants. The module consists of two parts. One part regarding AI-assisted monitoring and one part regarding the motivational factors that are important for their motivation and the impact of AI on motivation. Design requirements by the anesthesia assistants, as well as an expert validation by an anesthesia educator, are used to finalise the design of the module. This module can help anesthesia assistants to develop awareness and understanding of how AI-assisted monitoring, in the form of giving suggestions, can support them in their patient monitoring task. Furthermore, it helps them to develop awareness and understanding on their own motivation and the impact that the use of AI-assisted monitoring may have on their motivation, guiding them towards becoming deliberate professionals.

In this work, we studied future expansions of a synthetic cell with a dual perspective. For the Nanobiology part, we studied how the membrane surface area of a synthetic cell can grow, which is required for a synthetic cell to divide. Here, we combined growth strategies based on DNA and tension-mediated vesicle fusion. We found that 1 μM DNA and an osmotic shock optimise fusion efficiency, and we showcased the broad applicability of our fusion protocol. Furthermore, we observed indications of membrane growth, with a potential increase in membrane surface area sufficient for sustained synthetic cell division. For the Science Communication part, we studied the vision of the Synthetic Cell Initiative to build a European innovation ecosystem. The purpose of this innovation ecosystem is to develop synthetic cell applications through co-production. We propose that this innovation ecosystem should be formed through local synthetic cell hubs. By the promotion of bottom-up initiatives and the execution of top-down activities, responsible research and innovation can be internalised in the envisioned innovation ecosystem.

A fair part of the surface of the Netherlands consists of peat grounds. A large part of these grounds is used for livestock farming. However, the peat needs to be dried to prevent cows and other cattle from sinking with their hooves into the soft, wet peat. This drying starts a process called oxidation. This reaction with oxygen in the air and warm sunlight results in the forming of CO2 and some methane gas, which are added to the atmosphere. Since this contributes considerably to the CO2 emissions in the Netherlands, it requires solutions to stop the oxidation process and the subsequent subsidence. It seems impossible to find a solution for this problem with which every stakeholder can agree. Five main stakeholder groups are identified in this research: the research organisations, the agricultural stakeholders, the water management organisations, the nature preservation organisations, and the administrative bodies. These parties all have their own worldview and their own ideas about the situation. This forms a controversy, which contains many different elements and different actors, in which the different stakeholder groups disagree on different elements. This controversy slows down the process of stopping the oxidation of the peat meadow grounds. Therefore, the end goal of this research is on the one hand for the different stakeholder groups to gain insight in the motives of the viewpoints of the counteracting parties. On the other hand, a new base for these stakeholder groups should be formed in which a productive situation for (renewed) collaboration is created, which can lead to more effective conversations on the future solutions in peat meadow areas. This study is approached using the methodology concept of Design-based Research.
To create a situation in which stakeholders can work together towards a solution instead of just focusing on their own priorities, the stakeholders should take a step back and build trust on other levels with the different stakeholder groups. This should help them to open up to insights that other stakeholders may have, which could lead to a situation in which they could work together. With this as a foundation, a participatory tool was chosen that could help to build a situation for a more effective collaboration: a serious game. The digital board game ‘Samen door het veen' (translation: Together through the peat) was designed, played with representative players, and analysed with the concepts of collaboration and double loop learning. The results showed that the players built more trust during the game and gained more insight into the perspective of other players, so the game seems to achieve its goals quite well. It can be concluded that the game is fun to play and that it has quite some potential for stimulating double loop learning and creating a situation in which more effective collaboration could take place.

In this research, we use different supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques to detect anomalies in NetFlow data. We aim to create a system for home or small-business use where the user is in control. We use WEKA for the machine learning models and feature selection. The UGR’16 dataset is used to train and test the models. We create three different models for each method where the model is trained on one day and tested on another. We find that supervised models perform better than unsupervised ones. Random Forest has the highest F1-score (0.9165) of the supervised models. However, Random Forest is statistically similar to 6 out of 8 different classifiers according to the Friedman and Nemenyi tests. One challenge with supervised methods is that there is a need for a third party to make sure the models are updated for new attacks. However, it seems feasible to create a system for network monitoring for home usage. Finally, we argue that the approach to research in machine learning should, in some cases, take a different direction. Instead of chasing the highest accuracy, we should look at which factors allow a user to work with a system. A set of rules is much easier to interpret than complex models. Especially if these models are statistically similar we could look at factors other than a single metric. After these results, we look at presenting warning messages to end-users. We want to motivate users to take action after they read a message. For this, we first create a theoretical framework based on behaviour, motivation and uncertainties. We want to find out if we can use uncertainties to group users, which allows us to create a semi-personal approach. Based on this theoretical framework, we create different versions of a warning message that focus on different uncertainties. Through 22 interviews, we asked the participants to rank the different versions and asked them questions about their stance on network security and preferences for warning messages. We found that uncertainties can not be used to group users but that they do influence them. Including a solution and which steps to take offers users peace of mind, even if they are not able to complete the steps. The results indicate that a more personal approach is necessary where every person has the choice to customize the message to fit their preference.

We live in a fast-changing world, where higher engineering education focusses on creating engineers that will deal with upcoming technological innovations. It is important to think ahead and educate engineers that could work on these problems and develop technological solutions for them, and are adaptable to deal with the changes in the world. This thesis focusses on how the master programme Applied Mathematics at the TU Delft could prepare their graduates for their professional career, by including adaptability in the curriculum. Adaptability is the ability to settle more easily in a new and unfamiliar environment, and to withstand changes in a changed environment or a new environment. Starting a new job after graduation is new, unfamiliar and unpredictable, so being adaptable could smoothen the transition from programme to labour market. The results of this thesis showed that two adaptive competencies, Dealing with Uncertain and Unpredictable Work situations, and Demonstrating Interpersonal Adaptability, were found to be most interested and relevant to include in the master programme. A tool was developed for the internship to make students more aware about these competencies, make them practice these competencies at their internship by developing personal learning goals and have them reflect on their experiences at the end. This tool could make the AM students more adaptive, what might prepare them for their professional career.

This study has researched what are defining factors on the attitude toward a new technology within the group of Area Control (ACC) at Luchtverkeersleiding Nederland (LVNL) and how these factors shape an Air Traffic Controller’s (ATCo) attitude toward the technology in an exploratory way. The outcomes of the research suggest that dominant factors are result demonstrability, output quality, job relevance, subjective norm and (timeliness of) involvement in the development process. First, the work domain of air traffic control and the functioning of holding patterns were researched and a description of these things was given, based on interviews with air traffic controllers and on literature. It was found that the largest challenge when holding at LVNL is adherence to Expected Approach Time (EAT), and that this is caused by two things: the first is a lack of accurate and integrated information on the impact of a control decision on EAT adherence, the second is that current practice of ATCos is to aim for a 2:00 minute deviation from the EAT, which is the current error margin they are allowed to operate on. It was found, based on interviews with two professional area controllers and one other expert from LVNL, that in current practice an ATCo makes estimations of when to give a turn-to-IAF command based on a rule of thumb with a holding loop timing of four minutes and by extrapolating the history dots of the aircraft. However, analysis of historical holding pattern data shows that lap times often take six or seven minutes and that wind severely influences the in- and outbound ground speeds, making both the four-minute loop time and history dot extrapolation unreliable estimators. A support tool was designed that gives a prediction of the time it takes to reach the IAF from different locations, taking into account aircraft characteristics and wind. The new tool was designed such that it is in accordance with the layout and style of present LVNL systems. It involves two things. First, a prediction of the EAT adherence error upon giving an immediate turn-to-IAF command in the form of a delta-T in the aircraft label. Second, and a prediction of the turn-to-IAF locations at which an EAT adherence error of +120s, +110s, ..., 0s, 10s, ...-120s will be achieved, in the form of colored dots (ECOL dots) on the vertical view and the top view radar screen. The social situation at LVNL was described based on interviews with two professional area controllers and one other expert from LVNL. Indications were found for two opposite things. On the one hand, that (some) ATCos are willing to innovate and actually take initiative in innovation processes, and on the other hand, that (some) ATCos have a strong resistance toward technological system innovation. Regarding collaboration between groups, itwas found that the relation between ACC and Approach Control (APP) that is characterized by skepticism on the skills of the other party. Finally, it was found that ATCos take pride in the way they execute their job and are willing to work hard to achieve the goals they believe match their job description. In doing this, ATCos have indicated to value their autonomy and the idea that the effort they put in actually adds value for the full Air Traffic Control (ATC) process. Besides interviews to describe the situation at LVNL, case studies were done to research innovation in other organizations that showed similarities to the context of LVNL. Three things were found. First, ensuring people can contribute and influence the innovation from early stages of the innovation process is a promising factor that seems to influence a person’s attitude toward using the innovation in a positive way. Second, the lack of implementation of innovations has caused skepticism under ATCos. Third, the TAM is a suitable framework to further explore how area controllers at LVNL’s attitude toward innovations manifests itself. To be able to use the TAM in the framework, first, literature on the TAM has been reviewed. It has been found that there are different versions of the TAM that include or exclude several variables. For the present research, the most suitable version of the TAM was determined to be the TAM2, using the following external variables: result demonstrability, output quality, job relevance, image, subjective norm, experience, voluntariness, age. Next to the TAM in the framework, literature was reviewed on several factors surrounding the interaction with support systems, where autonomy and trust were found to be of a valuable contribution to the framework in the present research. The operationalization of the framework was done using survey questions, a semi-structured interview, and results from letting ATCos interact with the system innovation concept (the tool). It was found that some factors of the TAM could be questioned straightforward in either the survey or the interview, while for other factors it was necessary do design multiple questions and depend on the type of answers given by the participants. Since the research is exploratory, it was decided to keep the interview setup semi-structured to ensure participants would be able to outline defining factors for their attitude toward innovation relatively freely, instead of needing to keep them within a predefined set of factors. From the performed case study, where 10 ATCos participated in an experiment in which they had to manage two holding scenarios, with and without the tool, the following things were learned. First, three of the external variables defined in the framework played the largest role for participants’ perceived usefulness of the tool were result demonstrability, output quality and job relevance. Second, it was found that subjective norm impacts the attitude towards use for the participant group. A mismatch was found between the participants’ attitude toward innovation in general and the way the participants thought their colleagues viewed system innovations. Subjective norm was also found to be of influence on the participants personal objective in the level of EAT adherence they aim to obtain in their day-to-day work. Third, participants linked the external variables not only toward perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, as is the case in the TAM, but also to attitude towards use. Finally, it was found that participants appreciated being part of an innovation process rather than being presented with the final solution, which was further improved by the fact that the concept was visibly not perfected yet (even though it was functioning, it was clear it was still under development and showed some minor issues in e.g., the stability of the computer program).

The Thorium Molten Salt Reactor is one of the technologies being investigated to offer large scale carbon-free energy production. Yet as it is a form of nuclear energy it is controversial, and TMSR research is underfunded. In an effort to combat the controversy, a communication strategy for TMSR research is developed. This communication strategy is focussed on Dutch governmental organisations and political parties. The central question in this thesis is: How could TMSR be communicated by nuclear scientists, in order to improve the quality of discussion about TMSR at the relevant governmental organisations in the Netherlands? This was researched creating an overview of all relevant governmental organisations and interviewing several of them. Several factors that influence the attitude were hereby questioned, such as their values as an organisation, the frame by which they view nuclear energy in general, their approach to climate change, and their focus in energy policy. The relevant governmental organisations were identified as: ministry of economic affairs and climate, the social economic council, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, and the political parties PvdA, VVD, D66, GL, and CDA. The consensus focussed Dutch political system, coupled with preference for a democratic approach to climate change, leads to a communication strategy based on negotiation. This negotiation must be done in a constructive way that acknowledges the needs of all attending parties. Thorium is explicitly not to be presented as a substitution to wind, solar, and the climate agreement, but as an addition to it. The creation of a Platform Energy Innovation as a discussion form is recommended. This platform is to facilitate discussion with all the above-mentioned organisations and several other supporting ones. The use of integrative negotiation has the potential to create the desired positive attitude without creating enemies and thereby secure a more stable future for TMSR research in the context of the Dutch energy transition.

This report contains the results of the two thesis studies that finalise a combined MSc--programs of Reservoir Geology and Science Communication. The first part of the report comprises the multi-scale data (kilometers to meters scale) analysis of a) the large--scale architecture of the subsurface Daly Waters Arch which was obtained from seismic data interpretation; and b) fracture pattern characterisation by outcrop measurements and drone imagery in the Tomkinson Province. Both the Daly Waters Arch and the Tomkinson Province are located in the largely undeformed Palaeo-- to Meso--Proterozoic Greater McArthur Basin in the Northern Territory, Australia. In July 2019, a geological fieldwork was conducted in the Tomkinson Province to collect the fracture data with the drone. In this research, the Daly Waters Arch and the Tomkinson Province have been geologically linked based on seismic and fracture data. By discussing analog cases of far-field deformation, these results have been placed in a larger context of large--scale basin deformation.

The second part of the report focuses on the Netherlands, where ambitious goals have been set for the implementation of geothermal energy in the energy transition. During the gas production in Groningen, a negative social perspective towards mining operations, in general, was developed. For the implementation of geothermal energy, an approach for the communication of technical uncertainties between the initiators and the local public of a geothermal project is designed in this study. Technical uncertainties that are present in geothermal energy implementation in the Netherlands have been identified during semi-structured expert-interviews with different stakeholders in the spectrum of geothermal energy. The approach addresses guidelines for the communication of the context, the goal, the technical uncertainties present in the geothermal project, the main communicating actors, their reference frames, and the situation in which the communication process takes place.

The Netherlands has a strong tradition of blueprint planning in spatial design. Since the financial crisis of 2008, a shift has been made to more organic approaches to development. Currently, a paradigm is evolving which is able to deal with complex challenges that the built environment faces today: a shortage of housing and a transition to sustainable energy. Industrial area Schieoevers Noord, situated in Delft, is developed with the rationale of this new paradigm: directing into the direction of a mixed-use and densified city district, yet with an open end. Since the Municipality of Delft does not own land in the 75 hectares large district, interdependencies exist between the municipality, project developers, and the current users: industrial companies. The problem statement of this research project: how to plan for sustainable energy supply (heat and cold supply) in a complex context characterised by interdependencies. The concept of adaptivity has been explored as a potential strategy to implement in a process of sustainable energy planning, resulting in the design of a five-step approach: the Schieoevers Noord approach for adaptive energy planning. Six characteristics of adaptive processes have been found based on a literature review. Three of these turned out to be absent in current approaches for sustainable energy planning: a way to explicitly incorporate uncertainties (unpredictability and interdependency) in planning, mechanisms for iteration, and the creation of conditions for development (rather than planning actual developments). The latter has been intensively studied by investigating heat and cold balances in different building scenarios (densities and function mixes), concluding in the need to shape conditions for development in Schieoevers Noord, by the proposal of energy-based design guidelines, ensuring energy-neutral developments, no matter the building volume or mix of building functions.

Around the world, there are 58 Small Island Developing States (SIDS). What these SIDS generally have in common is that they are very susceptible to different natural hazards, among which coastal flooding. In order to address this issue, adaptation measures are needed. In order to prioritize adaptation efforts when considering these islands at a large scale, it is important to obtain an overview of which islands are most vulnerable to coastal flooding. This requires a large-scale assessment of coastal flooding for these islands. Such a large-scale assessment introduces different challenges, that were looked into in the hydraulic engineering part of this thesis. A first challenge is the availability op topography data for these islands. For most islands, only satellite-based DEMs are available. The accuracy of different satellite-based DEMs was assessed by comparing them to more accurate elevation data for 11 different islands. It could be concluded that in general, the TanDEM-X DEM is the most accurate for terrains with milder slopes, and the ALOS DEM for terrains with steeper slopes. Furthermore, the DEM error was found to be strongly correlated with forested and builded areas. Especially the DEM error in builded areas poses a problem for coastal flood assessments, as these are the main areas of interest in such assessments. Therefore, a building-correction method based on data from Open Street Map (OSM) was proposed and implemented. It could be concluded that the building-correction can both in- and decrease the DEM error, depending on the other error sources that are present in the DEM. A second challenge that is introduced when upscaling coastal flood assessments, is the used method for flood modelling. In the context of this thesis, a simple flood model (called the JBIW model) was developed. This model is a combination of the Janssen-Battjes model for short wave dissipation and the IW-method, which was originally developed for large-scale river flooding calculations. The JBIW model was tested in 1D and compared to other flood models. The results indicated that the simple flood model can be used to obtain a first estimate of coastal flooding, but is not accurate enough to predict exact values of the maximum water levels. Furthermore, the JBIW model was implemented in 2D for the island of Ebeye. The model was combined both with accurate elevation data and with building-corrected satellite-based DEMs. The results indicated that the error introduced by the use of the simple JBIW model were much smaller than the errors introduced by the use of the satellite-based DEMs. This indicates that further research focusing on the upscaling of coastal flood assessments for reef-fronted SIDS should focus on obtaining more accurate elevation data for these islands.
Apart from allocating resources to the SIDS in the most efficient way, it is important that the resources that are allocated to a certain island are used effectively. There are different ways to help these islands. An interesting approach is to focus on increasing the adaptive capacity of the SIDS. In the context of the science communication part of this thesis it was investigated whether the simple JBIW model could be used to increase the adaptive capacity to coastal flooding in the context of São Tomé. In order to do this, a theoretical framework was developed that aims to provide practical guidance in the assessment of the (barriers to the) adaptive capacity of a certain system. This framework was applied to the context of São Tomé to map the adaptive capacity to coastal flooding of the system and obtain an overview of the most important barriers to this adaptive capacity. Subsequently, it was assessed which barriers could be addressed with a tool based on the JBIW model. These barriers were used as the starting point for an initial design of the tool interface.

This study tries to find a way of motivating regular citizens to participate in scientific research. By means of literature research, expert interviews and experiments a prioritised list of incentives is comprised that citizens perceive as motivating them most and via which basic psychological needs these incentives influence motivation.

Only 32% of the Dutch primary schools do something with programming, despite its benefits on students’ skills, job opportunities, understanding of the world, and diversity. Primary school teachers not getting involved with programming education can be caused by a lack of belief in their teaching programming abilities. The belief in your own abilities towards a certain task is referred to as self-efficacy. We hypothesize that Dutch primary school teachers have a low self-efficacy towards programming education (partially) due to the teaching method used in programming education. Programming is often taught via discovery learning while Dutch primary school teachers use teacher-centered methods such as direct instruction more often. The usage of a certain teaching method can also influence the performance of the teacher. When teachers are able to use their existing knowledge and skills, then they have adaptive expertise. This research aims at answering the following question: What is the effect of teaching methods on the self-efficacy of Dutch primary school teachers towards programming education? The research question is answered through a mixed methods study consisting of a questionnaire, as part of a quantitative research, and an experiment, as part of a qualitative research. The questionnaire includes questions about teaching methods, self-efficacy, and demographics. In total 259 teachers participated within the questionnaire. We found that both direct instruction and discovery learning are well known by Dutch primary school teachers. Direct instruction is used by almost all participating teachers in their regular education. However, discovery learning is used by only 53% of the teachers in our sample. We also found that gender, grade, programming experience, and programming teaching experience result in differences in teachers’ self-efficacy towards programming education. Furthermore, teachers who expect to use discover learning in programming lessons have a different self-efficacy than teachers that do not expect this. An experiment is set-up in which ten Dutch primary school teachers give four programming lessons in Scratch while following either a direct instruction or discovery learning approach. Data is gathered on self-efficacy and adaptive expertise. We found that getting involved in programming education, independently of the teaching method, can increase the self-efficacy of teachers. However, the teachers in the discovery learning expressed more negative feelings towards the experience of teaching programming. The usage of discovery learning also seems to bring the risk of a decrease in self-efficacy. We think that adaptive expertise gives us more insights into this decrease. The teachers with a decreased self-efficacy showed higher levels of adaptive expertise. We think that this contributes to them having higher expectations of themselves. When these expectations are not met, a decrease in self-efficacy can occur. The research we have done indicate that the self-efficacy towards programming education of Dutch primary school teachers can increase while using either direct instruction or discovery learning. The experiment indicates that the usage of discovery learning can cause more negative feelings as well as the risk of a decrease in self-efficacy.

Connectivity within residential diversity is seen of high importance in current times of increasing polarization around economic and ethnic diversity. Due to an (1) erosion of institutions such as family and churches, (2) an increase of homogeneous networks, (3) a rise of urban places without clear links to each other, and (4) an upcoming tendency of high-income and high-educated residents to close themselves off within the built environment, the capacity of space to facilitate face-to-face interactions within residential diversity is questioned. Therefore, the project ‘Hier en Daar, a design-based research, explores the potential of urban design processes to foster the value of connectivity for a context with a high level of residential diversity. The research used multiple methods; literature, reflection, fieldwork, mapping and design. Results are illustrated for the case study area of Schiemond and surrounding areas in Rotterdam West. The research resulted in a roadmap for urban designers that explains four steps which could be taken to go for assignment to spatial intervention. The first step, named explore intention, involves a reflection on own motives and develops a definition of the value of connectivity. The second step is named adapt attitude and requires the development of an attitude towards residential diversity that does justice to its complexity. In the third step, analyse, urban conditions related to connectivity in residential diversity are explored. At last, during the fourth step, design, these findings can be translated into new type of connecting spaces by applying design principles, with help of design guidelines. All steps are supported by design mechanisms that can ease the urban design process, observed from author’s own value-sensitive design process.

Patients are becoming more involved in scientific projects, as evaluators, advisors or partners of academic researchers. From a science communication perspective, these experiences are a fascinating laboratory about the challenges of knowledge sharing and exchange between stakeholders with very different perspectives. Little is known about those who facilitate the blending of the experiential knowledge of patients and the scientific knowledge of researchers within these initiatives.

This thesis explores the professional profile of practitioners within patient organizations that are responsible for patient participation in research projects. Their position is analyzed from the perspective of the theory of knowledge brokering, which puts them at the center of the flow of science communication between the stakeholders. While existing literature has studied the emerging role of knowledge brokers in the transfer of scientific knowledge to decision-makers in healthcare, this thesis offers an original perspective on the context of patient participation, and compares the activities, professional knowledge, skills and personal attributes of the practitioners with that of knowledge brokers in healthcare. The needs that the practitioners express in terms of improvement of both their own profession as well as the process of patient participation have been analyzed using the concept of professionalization, which puts the focus on the development of new professional profiles.

A predominantly qualitative approach was chosen to gather reflections of nine practitioners on their current and desired professional profiles. They were selected after identifying Dutch patient organizations involved in participatory research projects. The methodology included semi-structured interviews and a card-sorting exercise inspired by Q methodology in which they were invited to rank skills and personal attributes related to knowledge brokering. The practitioners emerge as “enthusiastic connectors,” who put an emphasis on knowledge brokering activities and skills that foster the interaction between stakeholders, rather than on knowledge management. Many of the aspects they report as being part of their professional profile are consistent with those reported about knowledge brokers in the healthcare sector. However, the particular context of patient participation shapes their specific characteristics mainly related to their closest stakeholder, the patient. The practitioners confirm that academia, policy makers and funding organizations are increasingly interested in patient participation, and call for organizational changes in order to face this demand: increased recognition as a partner by external stakeholders, further internal recognition within their organization, as well as adequate human and financial resources.

The thesis serves to gain both academic insight, useful for developing measures of effectivity of knowledge brokering and further study, as well as practical insight, useful for recruitment of knowledge brokers and further professionalization of knowledge brokering and patient participation processes.

In the Netherlands, 2,5 million people are low-literate, which means they have trouble with reading, writing, numeracy or digital skills. As a result, they can experience difficulty with everyday tasks such as making a grocery list or taking public transport. Low-literacy negatively impacts both the individual as well as society. Despite efforts to address low-literacy, the percentage of low-literates is rising. It is not just the older generation, five percent of 16-24-year-olds are low-literate, and children of low-literate parents are three times more likely to become low-literate themselves than other children are. Two-thirds of low-literates in the Netherlands are natives, but in practice, they are the group reached less by literacy efforts. They are often ashamed and successful at hiding it because they are fluent speakers. Those in programmes are often already in mature adulthood, whereas for both the individual and society it would be beneficial if education is sought earlier in life. Therefore, this thesis tries to design an intervention reach and activate a younger group to want to address their literacy issues. The main research question is: “What are the barriers and enablers to reach and activate native Dutch low- literates, in particular, young parents?”Because low-literacy is a social problem, both the individual and societal perspective is explored: the individual perspective through interviews with the target group, the societal perspective through desk-research, and both through conversations with employees at Stichting Lezen & Schrijven who have much experience with the topic. These explorations resulted in ten design factors that serve as a basis for the intervention, as well as the insight that the low-literate’s dependency on those around him as well as the government, might be the core of the problem. As a result of this dependency, people’s self-efficacy can be diminished. A third perspective, a theoretical one, focussed on self-efficacy and related constructs, is taken. This perspective resulted in 18 extra design factors. At the same time of the theoretical exploration, the design of the intervention was started, in this way both influenced each other in the focus they had. The 19 theoretical factors go beyond the context of low-literacy and could, therefore, be applied to design projects that wish to increase self-efficacy. Resulting from insights based on context and theory, a design intervention is created that focusses on supporting young low-literate parents to engage with their children in the context of literacy through crafting. The design intervention is proposed to be offered as a promotional 11-week programme at a supermarket, available to all parents of young children, as a way to not single out those that are low-literate. The crafting instruction contains very little text, nevertheless the difficulty will slowly rise each week, the goal is to make the parent feel capable (self-efficacious) but at the same time show them they could benefit from improving their skills. The design is evaluated with professionals and users, showing that it is overall well-liked but the link to education could be improved. Due to time limitations, it was not possible to assess whether the intervention manages to increase self-efficacy, a pilot is proposed as a way to verify the effectiveness of the design. As a result of these evaluations, a final design is created that incorporates reading of the instruction even more fully.

The transfer of a patient's medical data between healthcare professionals is sometimes needed to take relevant aspects of the patient's health into account to offer fitting care for the specific patient. A patient's medical data is stored in the systems of the different healthcare professionals that treat or have treated the patient, thus explaining the need for transfer of medical data. In the Netherlands, it is required by law that the patient gives permission for the transfer both to the healthcare professional requesting the medical data and the one providing it before transfer can take place. The law went into effect partially on July 1st, 2017, and has to be fully implemented in three years' time. However, the transfer infrastructure is still in development, resulting in varying and even conflicting communication about the system. This makes it difficult for patients to understand and make the decision about access to their medical data. The aim of this thesis is to facilitate and support patients in making this decision. The patients' decision is influenced by numerous factors, such as their health, their previous experiences with healthcare, their values and their preferences regarding their medical data. The patients' perspective is therefore the focus of this thesis. The research question answered in this thesis is 'How can patients make an informed decision that fits their wishes regarding the accessibility of their medical data?' Contextmapping techniques such as sensitizing packages and personas helped revealing the patients' wishes regarding their medical data and their current experiences with (the transfer of) medical data. Through literature research, decision-making in healthcare was explored, leading to the identification of a combination of informed consent and shared decision making as a fitting approach for communication about the patient's decision.

Following the analysis, a solution was designed, consisting of necessary steps for creating the right context to enable patients to make a decision that fits their wishes about access to their medical data. This included a patient decision aid to concretely facilitate and support the patient during the decision-making process. Previous to consultation, the decision aid prepares patients for a conversation with the healthcare professional. It informs patients about the subject, makes them aware of the fact that the choice is theirs, and encourages them to think about their personal values and preferences. The decision aid enables patients to fit the decision about access to their medical data to their health situations and personal preferences. The design was then evaluated by discussing the patient decision aid with experts from practice, by testing the tool with patients and by using patient decision aid criteria identified in literature.