The number of Danish university students experiencing anxiety in their studies is growing due to stressful factors of studies coupled with individual performance requirements, for example, the pursuit of good grades. The education reform suggested by the Danish government might worsen the situation by asking students to complete their studies faster and more efficiently. To help university students cope with their growing study-related anxiety and prevent it from developing into more severe mental health issues, this project investigates how smart garment-based wearables could be designed to allow shared management of student anxiety with their close ones (that is, a close friend, family member, or partner) in the university context. In this approach, the student with anxiety is not left alone to cope but is getting a meaningful tangible support in situ through a garment-based wearable.
The project will apply qualitative interviews and participatory design approaches to understand university students' experiences with study-related anxiety, design context, and stakeholder needs for wearable technology. The knowledge is also constructed through the design and implementation of garment-based wearable concepts and prototypes by applying constructive design research methodology. The prototypes will be constructed with soft manufacturing machines (e.g., sewing, embroidery, and/ or knitting machines) provided by the AU Wearables Lab. Finally, the resulting wearables will be studied long-termly in the situ to investigate participants’ subjective lived experiences with the wearables by applying mixed methods approach.
The project offers insights into the shared management of anxiety in study-related contexts and how to realize wearables for the alleviation of student anxiety in-situ in subtle and meaningful manner. The findings are important to design for mental health and human-computer interaction research, as well as for Danish society by providing alternative means to tackle raising mental care needs of the young population.
