A Review of the Processes By Which School Psychologists and Counsellors Can Use Taxonomies to Evaluate Health-Related Apps

• Published in: Australian journal of guidance and counselling Vol. 28; no. 2; pp. 212 - 233
• Main Authors: Ostojic, Marko, Chung, Jasmine, DiMattia, Michael, Furlonger, Brett, Busacca, Margherita, Chittleborough, Philip
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.12.2018; SAGE Publications
• Subjects: Academic Libraries; Asthma; At Risk Students; Behavior; Behavior Change; Behaviour change; Change Strategies; Chronic illnesses; Classification; Coding; Computer Oriented Programs; Content analysis; Coping; Diabetes; Educational Technology; Empowerment; Evaluation; Health behaviour; Health Conditions; Inferences; Information Seeking; Interrater Reliability; Intervention; Mental Health; Mobile technology; Program Evaluation; R&D; Research & development; Research and Development; Research methodology; Researchers; Resistance (Psychology); School Counselors; School Psychologists; Search Strategies; Self Management; Smartphones; Statistical Analysis; Student behaviour; Student counsellors; Students; Taxonomy; evaluation; counselling; content-analysis; students; school; apps
• ISSN: 2055-6365; 1037-2911; 2055-6373
• DOI: 10.1017/jgc.2018.4

School students are increasingly using apps for health-related purposes, either on their own or when recommended by psychologists or counsellors, as apps offer a way to assist students to change their behaviour. However, there is a growing need for psychologists and counsellors to be able to evaluate the quality and usefulness of such apps to effect behaviour change. This study was therefore undertaken to identify methods by which school psychologists and counsellors could evaluate health-related apps for clinical use or research purposes. After examining 15 studies of apps that met the inclusion criteria, it was clear that researchers used a number of taxonomies to evaluate the apps. There were seven taxonomies identified, of which five were generalisable to all health conditions, with the behaviour change technique (BCT) taxonomy being the most comprehensive, containing 13 key behaviour strategies. Despite the utility of the taxonomies to identify the amount of behaviour change content within the apps, it was difficult to determine how the behaviour change strategies were measured, thus reducing the ability to predict app effectiveness. Approaches to improving methods by which apps can be developed and evaluated are proposed.