EdTech and Ethics: Monitoring Suicide Risk in UK Schools
Jessica Lorimer1, University Of Oxford 1University Of Oxford
Abstract
Suicide is a leading cause of death for British adolescents, and there is evidence that rates are increasing for this cohort. For example, in 2021, suicide rates reached a 20-year high amongst UK adolescents ages 15-19 (6.4 deaths per 100,000) (ONS, 2022).
Monitoring students’ online behaviour has been suggested as one way predict (and thus prevent) suicide. Within education, Impero’s “well:being” program is used in over 1,400 schools in the UK. This program uses Machine Learning (ML) and inductive methods to collect data on students’ computer use, and then uses this data to make inferences on issues such as the students’ risk for self-harm and suicide.
My work seeks to understand the responsibility of different parties (e.g. psychologist, teacher, developer, child) for acting on these “high risk” predictions. For example, teachers already have a formalised duty of care and custodianship towards their students’ wellbeing (Shade & Singh, 2016). Do these new monitoring programs change the nature of responsibility? How might a shift of responsibility from clinician to teacher (to Ed-Tech developer) impact our understanding of whether these monitoring systems should be used?
To answer these questions, I introduce initial results from a series of semi-structured interviews. Within this I explore how teachers navigate the normative – what they think their roles ought to be, or what the role of a teacher more generally ought to be, with regard to this new technology.
Biography
Bio to come