Running Head: PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 1 UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Sustainability Program Student Research Report Examining the Importance of Napping Privacy to UBC Students Majorly Psyched: Livia Ng, Qutube Omar, Gloria Park, Olivia Quon, Allison Ratz, Winnie Wen University of British Columbia PSYC 321 Themes: Buildings, Health, Wellbeing April 4, 2019 Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS Sustainability Program provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student research project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore, readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Sustainability Program representative about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report”. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 2 Executive Summary In today’s society, many adults are falling victim to sleep deprivation, which causes an overall reduction of productivity and performance amongst individuals. Past research on the subject matter mainly focuses on the various factors that aided an individual's sleep rather than on the design of the napping environment or napping unit. Noticing this gap in research, we decided to examine the impact of napping unit (nap pods and room design) privacy on students of the University of British Columbia (UBC). This study was conducted via an online questionnaire, in which participants were presented with five nap space scenarios and were then asked to rate how they felt in terms of our five dependant variables- privacy, anxiousness, comfort, and safety. The results revealed that UBC students preferred a more private nap pod, as it provides them with feelings of increased safety and comfortability; in addition, it caused them to feel less anxious about the idea of using the napping space that will be provided in the new Arts Student Centre. Moreover, our findings demonstrated that participants were not in favour of a surveillance camera canvassing the room. Keywords: napping; privacy; comfortability; safety; anxiousness; nap pods PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 3 Introduction Sleep deprivation is an important issue as it heavily affects both the productivity and performance of individuals. Although the causes of sleep deprivation may vary, ultimately, the inherent impact is the same among adults. In order to compensate for this, some institutions are providing nap stations or comfortable furniture in hopes of enhancing individual alertness, productivity, and academic performance. In a study by Wise (2018), it was shown that those who nap perform better in recall and relational interpretation tasks. The recommendation was that those who nap should only nap for up to 20 or 90 minutes at a time, as waking up prior to a slow wave sleep could lead to grogginess (Wise, 2018). Evidently, napping at the right time of the day could lead to better cognitive functions in terms of memory and attention span - notably for employees and students (Roessler & Grove, 2018). According to the American College Health Association (2015), it was found that 91% of students reported feeling daytime tiredness and sleepiness during the duration of the research. Additionally, they found that not only was the length of the nap important, but also the napping environment. In Dubrose and Hadi’s research (2016), their primary focus was on the temperature of the room, lighting, noise level, and aromatherapy. Although their results showcased the positive impacts of minimizing light and sound disturbances, as well as the use of aromatherapy, minimal to no research has been done on the importance of privacy between beds or nap stations. The absence of research in this area thus motivated us to examine the designs of various napping stations, and the extent to which participants value privacy in their use of nap pods. To further explore the impact of privacy, we conducted research on how privacy affects students’ desire to utilize napping spaces. We hypothesized that students who were exposed to higher privacy conditions would report feeling more comfortable, safe, and less anxious; which in turn, would lead them to be more inclined to use the nap pods. Methods Participants Our study included a random sample of 106 UBC undergraduate and graduate students, with ages ranging from 18 to 30 years old (mean age = 21.55 years; 64 females, 29 males, 1 non-binary) (Appendix Figure 1), who responded to our questionnaire through a shared link. Of the total sample, 84 participants provided responses to all questions in our survey. Conditions For the purpose of our study, we included five different conditions as the independent variables. Each condition incorporated a different degree of privacy. The first condition was a sleeping area that was separated off by curtains. The second condition was a sleeping pod that only covered the upper-half of the body. The third condition was a sleeping pod that was fully enclosed, so the entire body would be covered. The fourth condition included a napping room with a surveillance camera in the corner. Our fifth condition was an open napping space that did not include any level of privacy - this was our control condition (Appendix Questionnaire). For our dependent variables, participants were asked to rate their feelings of anxiousness, comfortability, privacy, and safety based on the scenarios provided. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 4 Measures We created an online survey via Qualtrics for our study. In our survey, participants were presented with five conditions and were then asked to rate their feelings on a five point scale that stated, “clearly does not describe my feelings”, “mostly does not describe my feelings”, “somewhat describes my feelings”, “mostly describes my feelings” and “clearly describes my feelings” based on how anxious, comfortable, safe and private they felt in each individual condition. As a result, the effects of each level of privacy, and how these made participants feel according to our dependant variables, was examined and interpreted. The independent variables in our study were the five conditions listed above. In order to keep our measurements discrete, we included other feelings, such as content, disturbed, and upset. The ratings that participants reported for each measure were our dependent variables. Demographic information regarding our participants were collected at the beginning of the questionnaire, in which subjects were asked to provide their age, gender, and year of study (Appendix Questionnaire). Procedure Our research was conducted over the span of three weeks (March 5th to March 27th, 2019). Participants were sent a link via Facebook Messenger, as well as through Facebook posts. Not only did we utilize this social media platform, but we also recruited UBC students from our various classes, which allowed subjects to complete the survey on their personal mobile devices or laptops, at their own convenience. Upon completing the survey we encouraged participants to share the link with fellow UBC peers. After reading the consent form and agreeing to participate, participants then clicked “next” and answered the demographic questions before continuing on with the survey questions related to our research question. To ensure that we collected generalized data, we also asked participants about how often they napped and the duration of their naps. Participants were then presented with a scenario based on our five privacy related conditions; all the conditions in our survey were presented in random order, except for the control condition, as we wanted to avoid biases in the responses. The conditions were presented one at a time and upon completion, participants clicked “next” to view the following condition. Within each condition, they were asked to rate how they felt in regards to the dependant variables. We conducted a one-way within-subjects ANOVA to measure participant ratings on the dependent variables. Results In order to compare the effects of our five nap conditions (curtains, half enclosure, full enclosure, surveillance camera, and control), across the four participant ratings (private, anxious, safe, comfortable), we conducted a series of one-way within subjects ANOVAs. Afterwards, post hoc tests using pairwise comparisons were used to compare the conditions. The one-way within subjects ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of napping conditions on participants’ privacy ratings, F(3.31, 332) = 60.65, p < .001. Post hoc tests using pairwise comparisons indicated that privacy ratings in the full enclosure condition (M = 4.27, SD = 0.84) were significantly higher than the curtains (M = 3.18, SD = 1.11), half enclosed (M = 2.86, SD = 1.08), surveillance camera (M= 1.94, SD= 1.00), and control (M = 2.46, SD = 1.31) conditions. The surveillance camera condition was found to have the lowest privacy ratings, with PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 5 ratings significantly lower than the curtain and fully enclosed conditions (See appendix for full pairwise comparisons, mean, and standard deviations) (See Figure 2). Tests further indicated an effect of our independent variable on anxiousness ratings, F(4, 332) = 10.83, p < .001. Post hoc tests concluded that anxiety ratings in the fully enclosed condition (M = 2.21, SD = 1.11) were significantly lower than the half covering (M= 2.89, SD = 1.11), surveillance camera (M = 3.01, SD = 1.22), and control condition (M= 2.87, SD= 1.11). The anxiety ratings in the surveillance camera condition were also significantly lower than the curtain and fully enclosed conditions. (See Figure 3). In terms of safety, an ANOVA revealed a significant effect of the independent variable on the dependant variable, F(4, 324) = 27.98, p < .001. Safety ratings in the full enclosure condition (M= 3.90, SD = .90) were significantly higher than the curtains (M = 2.98, SD = .94), half enclosure (M = 2.60, SD = .93), surveillance camera (M= 2.98, SD = 1.19), and control condition (M= 2.54, SD= 1.16). The control condition was found to have the lowest safety ratings, with ratings significantly lower than the curtain and fully enclosed conditions (See Figure 4). Again, there was a significant main effect of the IV on the DV in terms of comfortability, F(4, 332) = 30.91, p < .001. Pairwise comparisons revealed that comfort ratings in the fully enclosed condition (M = 3.90, SD = .90) were significantly higher than the curtains (M = 2.96, SD = .94), half enclosed (M = 2.62, SD = .93), surveillance camera (M= 2.95, SD = 1.18), and control condition (M= 2.54, SD= 1.15) (See Figure 5). The findings suggest that napping conditions do, in fact, have an effect on participants’ privacy, anxiety, safety, and comfortability ratings. Specifically, our results suggest that the fully enclosed condition would allow participants to feel more private, safe, comfortable, and less anxious. Discussion Our results indicate that the fully enclosed condition had the most significant results, indicating that it was the least anxiety inducing condition. In contrast, the surveillance camera condition had the lowest statistical difference across all dependent variables including our control. From this, our results highlight the idea that a surveillance camera was the least favored scenario amongst participants, as it lowered their feelings of privacy, safety and comfortability. We did, however, find that the lowered ratings in relation to the surveillance camera condition may have been caused by our phrasing of the scenario in the questionnaire. Our study had a few limitations that should be considered when conducting future research. One of our limitations was the inadequate phrasing used for the surveillance camera condition. In our survey, the phrase “camera in the corner of the room” may have created a biased response by creating the impression of an intrusion to personal privacy. For future studies, we suggest rewording the phrase in a context that would emphasize that the camera’s primary use is for security purposes; though this change could lead to divergent results. Secondly, the order of our survey questions may have caused some biases. We presented the control condition as the final question, because we were concerned about context effects in relation to the other conditions in our survey. In light of this, we would suggest randomizing all conditions in future studies in order to avoid potential response biases. Another limitation that we noted was not providing participants with the option to be debriefed, if they had any questions or concerns regarding our study. We recommend that future studies should provide an optional debriefing PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 6 session if participants desired. These are the potential limitations of our study, and future studies should consider whether our results can be replicated with different wording in relation to the surveillance camera condition, and a randomization of questions. The findings revealed the importance of privacy to UBC students when it comes to napping in a public space. In the context of nap pods, we suggest a fully enclosed design to increase user’s sense of privacy, safety, and comfort. Not only will it increase the prospect of students using the nap pods, but it will also reduce their levels of anxiety. It is important to note that the use of surveillance cameras could potentially counteract the positive experiences of the enclosed nap pods, but further research would be required to examine this case. In regards to the larger population, students who are well rested may provide several benefits for the UBC community. If UBC students are given the opportunity to ensure that they are well rested and not sleep deprived, they will in turn be more productive and perform better academically. This benefit would not only help them on an academic standpoint, but it would also encourage the importance of better mental health. With this in mind, these factors could help students perform optimally. Subsequently, this could promote the desire to be more environmentally aware, encouraging students to make greener choices. For example, they may choose to be more physically active, thus reducing greenhouse gases, if they choose to walk or bike around campus instead of driving. Recommendations for UBC Client The University of British Columbia (UBC) and our client, Michael Kingsmill, can apply our research findings towards future developments of nap pods in the new Arts Student Centre. In our research, we found that students greatly valued personal privacy when using nap pods. For the design of the nap pods, we suggest creating a fully enclosed design to increase the privacy of the pods, which in turn, will entice students to utilize the nap pods. In accordance to our results, for a fully enclosed nap pod, we would also suggest to include an indicator to notify other users as to whether the pod is currently occupied; this would prevent people from interrupting others and provide additional security. Alternatively, a half-enclosed pod or curtains to separate the beds would be the next best option to ensure student’s privacy while napping. Although surveillance cameras offer safety, we would not recommend the installation them in the room, since according to our results, the utilization of these made participants feel anxious, less comfortable and less safe. It would be counterproductive to have surveillance cameras installed in the room when the purpose of the room is to help individuals relax and recharge. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 7 References DuBose, J. R., & Hadi, K. (2016). Improving inpatient environments to support patient sleep. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 28(5), 540–553. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1093/intqhc/mzw079 Roessler, K. K., & Grove, S. (2018). Adolescents need more sleep: Rethinking the preventive options of school environments. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1177/1403494818785788 Wise, M. J. (2018) Naps and sleep deprivation: Why academic libraries should consider adding nap stations to their services for students. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 24(2), 192-210. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2018.1431948 PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 8 Appendix Figures Figure 1. A pie graph of the gender distribution of our study population. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 9 Figure 2. The one-way within subjects ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of the nap conditions on participant privacy ratings, F(3.31, 332) = 60.65, p < .001. Post hoc tests using pairwise comparisons indicated that privacy ratings in the fully enclosed condition (M = 4.27, SD = 0.84) were significantly higher than the curtains (M = 3.18, SD = 1.11), half enclosed (M = 2.86, SD = 1.08), surveillance camera (M = 1.94, SD = 1.00), and control (M = 2.46, SD = 1.31) conditions. The surveillance camera condition had significantly lower ratings than the curtain and fully enclosed conditions. The error bars indicate standard error of the mean at 95% confidence interval. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 10 Figure 3. An ANOVA with repeated measures indicated a significant main effect on privacy levels of nap pods on participant ratings of anxiousness F(4, 332) = 10.83, p < .001. Post hoc tests using pairwise comparisons indicated that anxious ratings in the fully enclosed condition (M = 2.21, SD = 1.11) were significantly lower than the half enclosed (M= 2.89, SD = 1.11), surveillance camera (M = 3.01, SD = 1.22), and control condition (M= 2.87, SD= 1.11). The curtains condition did not differ significantly from the fully enclosed condition. Anxiousness ratings in the surveillance camera condition was significantly lower than the curtains and fully enclosed condition. The error bars indicate standard error of the mean at 95% confidence interval. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 11 Figure 4. A one-way within groups ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of the independent on the dependant variable. F (4, 324) = 27.98, p < .001. Post hoc tests using pairwise comparisons indicated that safe ratings in the fully enclosed condition (M = 3.90, SD = .90) were significantly higher than the curtains M = 2.98, SD = .94), half covering (M = 2.60, SD = .93), surveillance camera (M= 2.98, SD = 1.19), and control condition (M= 2.54, SD= 1.16). The error bars indicate standard error of the mean at 95% confidence interval. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 12 Figure 5. A one-way within groups ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of napping conditions on participant comfort ratings F(4, 332) = 30.91, p < .001. Post hoc tests using pairwise comparisons indicated that comfort ratings in the fully enclosed condition (M = 3.90, SD = 0.90) were significantly higher than the curtains M = 2.96, SD = .94), half covering (M = 2.62, SD = .93), surveillance camera (M = 2.95, SD = 1.18), and control condition (M= 2.54, SD= 1.15). The error bars indicate standard error of the mean at 95% confidence interval. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 13 Tables Table 1 Note. Full pairwise comparison of privacy ratings across conditions (1: curtains; 2: half enclosure; 3: full enclosure; 4: surveillance camera; 5: control) PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 14 Table 2 Pairwise Comparisons of Anxiousness Across Conditions Note. Full pairwise comparison of anxious ratings across conditions (1: curtains; 2: half enclosure; 3: full enclosure; 4: surveillance camera; 5: control) PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 15 Table 3 Pairwise Comparisons of Safety Across Conditions Note. Full pairwise comparison of safe ratings across conditions (1: curtains; 2: half enclosure; 3: full enclosure; 4: surveillance camera; 5: control). PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 16 Table 4 Pairwise Comparisons of Privacy Across Conditions Note. Full pairwise comparison of comfort ratings across conditions (1: curtains; 2: half enclosure; 3: full enclosure; 4: surveillance camera; 5: control). PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 17 Table 5 Note. Table indicates means, standard deviations, and number of samples for privacy ratings across conditions. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 18 Table 6 Note. Table indicates means, standard deviations, and number of samples for anxious ratings across conditions. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 19 Table 7 Note. A table of means, standard deviations, and number of samples for safety ratings across conditions. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 20 Table 8 Note. A table of means, standard deviations, and number of samples for comfort ratings across conditions. PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 21 Questionnaire PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 22 PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 23 PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 24 PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 25 PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 26 PRIVACY IN NAP PODS 27
- Library Home /
- Search Collections /
- Open Collections /
- Browse Collections /
- UBC Undergraduate Research /
- Examining the Importance of Napping Privacy to UBC...
Open Collections
UBC Undergraduate Research
Examining the Importance of Napping Privacy to UBC Students Ng, Livia; Omar, Qutube; Park, Gloria; Quon, Olivia; Ratz, Allison; Wen, Winnie 2019-04-04
pdf
Notice for Google Chrome users:
If you are having trouble viewing or searching the PDF with Google Chrome, please download it here instead.
If you are having trouble viewing or searching the PDF with Google Chrome, please download it here instead.
Page Metadata
Item Metadata
Title | Examining the Importance of Napping Privacy to UBC Students |
Alternate Title | Privacy in nap pods |
Creator |
Ng, Livia Omar, Qutube Park, Gloria Quon, Olivia Ratz, Allison Wen, Winnie |
Contributor |
University of British Columbia. Sustainability Office University of British Columbia. Alma Mater Society. |
Date Issued | 2019-04-04 |
Description | In today’s society, many adults are falling victim to sleep deprivation, which causes an overall reduction of productivity and performance amongst individuals. Past research on the subject matter mainly focuses on the various factors that aided an individual's sleep rather than on the design of the napping environment or napping unit. Noticing this gap in research, we decided to examine the impact of napping unit (nap pods and room design) privacy on students of the University of British Columbia (UBC). This study was conducted via an online questionnaire, in which participants were presented with five nap space scenarios and were then asked to rate how they felt in terms of our five dependant variables- privacy, anxiousness, comfort, and safety. The results revealed that UBC students preferred a more private nap pod, as it provides them with feelings of increased safety and comfortability; in addition, it caused them to feel less anxious about the idea of using the napping space that will be provided in the new Arts Student Centre. Moreover, our findings demonstrated that participants were not in favour of a surveillance camera canvassing the room. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.” |
Subject |
Buildings Health Wellbeing |
Genre |
Report |
Type |
Text |
Language | eng |
Series |
UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Report University of British Columbia. PSYC 321 |
Date Available | 2019-12-17 |
Provider | Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library |
Rights | Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International |
DOI | 10.14288/1.0387187 |
URI | http://hdl.handle.net/2429/72821 |
Affiliation |
Arts, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Psychology, Department of Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for |
Peer Review Status | Unreviewed |
Scholarly Level | Undergraduate |
Rights URI | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
AggregatedSourceRepository | DSpace |
Download
- Media
- 18861-Ng_L_et_al_PSYC_321_Examining_napping_Majorly_Psyched_final_report.pdf [ 2.17MB ]
- Metadata
- JSON: 18861-1.0387187.json
- JSON-LD: 18861-1.0387187-ld.json
- RDF/XML (Pretty): 18861-1.0387187-rdf.xml
- RDF/JSON: 18861-1.0387187-rdf.json
- Turtle: 18861-1.0387187-turtle.txt
- N-Triples: 18861-1.0387187-rdf-ntriples.txt
- Original Record: 18861-1.0387187-source.json
- Full Text
- 18861-1.0387187-fulltext.txt
- Citation
- 18861-1.0387187.ris
Full Text
Cite
Citation Scheme:
Usage Statistics
Share
Embed
Customize your widget with the following options, then copy and paste the code below into the HTML
of your page to embed this item in your website.
<div id="ubcOpenCollectionsWidgetDisplay">
<script id="ubcOpenCollectionsWidget"
src="{[{embed.src}]}"
data-item="{[{embed.item}]}"
data-collection="{[{embed.collection}]}"
data-metadata="{[{embed.showMetadata}]}"
data-width="{[{embed.width}]}"
data-media="{[{embed.selectedMedia}]}"
async >
</script>
</div>

https://iiif.library.ubc.ca/presentation/dsp.18861.1-0387187/manifest