scholarly journals Content-Based Recommender Support System for Counselors in a Suicide Prevention Chat Helpline: Design and Evaluation Study

10.2196/21690 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. e21690
Author(s):  
Salim Salmi ◽  
Saskia Mérelle ◽  
Renske Gilissen ◽  
Willem-Paul Brinkman
Keyword(s):  
Suicide Prevention ◽  
Support System ◽  
Recommendation System ◽  
Evaluation Study ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Writer's Block ◽  
Difficult Situation ◽  
Difficult Conversations ◽  
Writer’S Block ◽  
Subject Experiment

Background The working environment of a suicide prevention helpline requires high emotional and cognitive awareness from chat counselors. A shared opinion among counselors is that as a chat conversation becomes more difficult, it takes more effort and a longer amount of time to compose a response, which, in turn, can lead to writer’s block. Objective This study evaluates and then designs supportive technology to determine if a support system that provides inspiration can help counselors resolve writer’s block when they encounter difficult situations in chats with help-seekers. Methods A content-based recommender system with sentence embedding was used to search a chat corpus for similar chat situations. The system showed a counselor the most similar parts of former chat conversations so that the counselor would be able to use approaches previously taken by their colleagues as inspiration. In a within-subject experiment, counselors’ chat replies when confronted with a difficult situation were analyzed to determine if experts could see a noticeable difference in chat replies that were obtained in 3 conditions: (1) with the help of the support system, (2) with written advice from a senior counselor, or (3) when receiving no help. In addition, the system’s utility and usability were measured, and the validity of the algorithm was examined. Results A total of 24 counselors used a prototype of the support system; the results showed that, by reading chat replies, experts were able to significantly predict if counselors had received help from the support system or from a senior counselor (P=.004). Counselors scored the information they received from a senior counselor (M=1.46, SD 1.91) as significantly more helpful than the information received from the support system or when no help was given at all (M=–0.21, SD 2.26). Finally, compared with randomly selected former chat conversations, counselors rated the ones identified by the content-based recommendation system as significantly more similar to their current chats (β=.30, P<.001). Conclusions Support given to counselors influenced how they responded in difficult conversations. However, the higher utility scores given for the advice from senior counselors seem to indicate that specific actionable instructions are preferred. We expect that these findings will be beneficial for developing a system that can use similar chat situations to generate advice in a descriptive style, hence helping counselors through writer’s block.

scholarly journals Content-Based Recommender Support System for Counselors in a Suicide Prevention Chat Helpline: Design and Evaluation Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salim Salmi ◽  
Saskia Mérelle ◽  
Renske Gilissen ◽  
Willem-Paul Brinkman
Keyword(s):  
Suicide Prevention ◽  
Support System ◽  
Recommendation System ◽  
Evaluation Study ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Writer's Block ◽  
Difficult Situation ◽  
Difficult Conversations ◽  
Writer’S Block ◽  
Subject Experiment

BACKGROUND The working environment of a suicide prevention helpline requires high emotional and cognitive awareness from chat counselors. A shared opinion among counselors is that as a chat conversation becomes more difficult, it takes more effort and a longer amount of time to compose a response, which, in turn, can lead to writer’s block. OBJECTIVE This study evaluates and then designs supportive technology to determine if a support system that provides inspiration can help counselors resolve writer’s block when they encounter difficult situations in chats with help-seekers. METHODS A content-based recommender system with sentence embedding was used to search a chat corpus for similar chat situations. The system showed a counselor the most similar parts of former chat conversations so that the counselor would be able to use approaches previously taken by their colleagues as inspiration. In a within-subject experiment, counselors’ chat replies when confronted with a difficult situation were analyzed to determine if experts could see a noticeable difference in chat replies that were obtained in 3 conditions: (1) with the help of the support system, (2) with written advice from a senior counselor, or (3) when receiving no help. In addition, the system’s utility and usability were measured, and the validity of the algorithm was examined. RESULTS A total of 24 counselors used a prototype of the support system; the results showed that, by reading chat replies, experts were able to significantly predict if counselors had received help from the support system or from a senior counselor (<i>P</i>=.004). Counselors scored the information they received from a senior counselor (M=1.46, SD 1.91) as significantly more helpful than the information received from the support system or when no help was given at all (M=–0.21, SD 2.26). Finally, compared with randomly selected former chat conversations, counselors rated the ones identified by the content-based recommendation system as significantly more similar to their current chats (β=.30, <i>P</i>&lt;.001). CONCLUSIONS Support given to counselors influenced how they responded in difficult conversations. However, the higher utility scores given for the advice from senior counselors seem to indicate that specific actionable instructions are preferred. We expect that these findings will be beneficial for developing a system that can use similar chat situations to generate advice in a descriptive style, hence helping counselors through writer’s block.

ON WRITER'S BLOCK: A MEDITATION ON SADISM

2015 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 52-63
Author(s):  
Jean McGarry
Keyword(s):  
Writer's Block ◽  
Writer’S Block

scholarly journals Influences of Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership, and Patriarchal Leadership on Job Satisfaction of Cram School Faculty Members

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lan ◽  
Chang ◽  
Ma ◽  
Zhang ◽  
Chuang
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Transformational Leadership ◽  
Transactional Leadership ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Test Method ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Difficult Situation ◽  
Education Industry ◽  
Cram Schools ◽  
Cram School

While there is a decline in the annual population of Taiwan, the number of crams schools in the supplementary education industry is increasing. A concern is that there are not enough students to go around. Cram schools are facing a difficult situation to survive in the industry. Therefore, a great and useful leadership method is needed to help leaders lead their faculty members and organizations so that they can survive and even grow in this white-hot industry. In this study, 400 New Taipei City cram school faculties were invited to be the research objects to study the influences of transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and patriarchal leadership on job satisfaction. This study adopted the method of intentional sampling to conduct a questionnaire survey. After collecting data, SPSS12.0 software was used to analyze the descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, description of statistics, t-test method of single factor analysis of variance, and regression. As a result of this research, the employees under transformational leadership have a larger positive result on outer job satisfaction while patriarchal leadership has positive influences on inner job satisfaction. Encouraging subordinates with positive responses, inspiring speeches, and compliments could make subordinates satisfied with the company and interaction with colleagues, while teaching subordinates behavior sets up a moral and authorized style and controlling the organization directly could let subordinates get a sense of accomplishment from work. This study is aimed to provide suggestions and references for the cram schools’ leaders to change their leadership styles and improve their employees’ job satisfaction. Cram schools that take the suggestions and references could improve their working environment and become more competitive in the education industry.

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