KidsDoodlePass: An Exploratory Study of an Authentication Mechanism for Young Children

Part 4: Security BehaviourInternational audienceTextual passwords are problematic for young children, whose cognitive, memory and linguistic capabilities are still developing. A possible alternative to using text for authentication systems for young children is drawings. In this paper, we describe an authentication system called KidsDoodlePass, which use simple drawings (“doodles”) that the children themselves create. An initial evaluation of the system was undertaken with 19 children aged 6 to 9 years of age. Success of logging in with KidsDoodlePass was high, only on few occasions did a child need more than one attempt, demonstrating that the system is effective. Selection times dropped significantly on the second use of the KidsPassDoodle and were typically under 10 s per grid. Most children thought their KidsDoodlePass would be easier to remember than a text password, a significant proportion. These positive results suggest that KidsDoodlePass could be a useful mechanism for young children to use as a first experience of authentication and a useful first step toward adult authentication systems

Road Safety Education: A Paradoxical State for Children in a Rural Primary School in South Africa

The study explores the response of rural primary school children to road safety education programmes. In this qualitative research project, we employed an interpretivist paradigm to investigate and understand children’s responses to road safety education in one school in the Moloto Village, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Drawing on various participatory activities done by the child participants, as well as nonparticipant observation by the researchers through ‘photo voice’, the researchers posit their findings. The key finding is that the children theoretically know what to do when using the road as pedestrians but that they do not apply road safety rules as the community’s unsafe road use behaviour undermines all road safety skills the children have learnt at school. The paradox between what the literature on road safety education prescribes and what the national curriculum of South Africa promotes regarding road safety, and what the children apply in their daily lives, is apparent and noteworthy.http://jas.sagepub.com/hb2014gv201

Evolutionary factors in design preferences

There is a large body of research documenting sex differences in certain visual-spatial skills, and relating these differences to evolutionary factors. There is also a growing body of work documenting sex differences in design preferences. This article seeks to bring these bodies of work together, presenting a model suggesting that sex differences in visual-spatial abilities may have worked alongside evolutionary pressures to encourage the sex differences observed in design preferences. It will also seek to identify areas in our knowledge where there are gaps, and, from these, suggest areas for further research. It will begin by reviewing the literature on sex differences in visual-spatial abilities, and then consider the literature concerning sex differences in design productions and preferences. From there, it will address possible evolutionary explanations and attempt to tie these different strands of research together