DOI: 10.4121/261e07af-676b-4121-af6d-093954bf639b.v1
title: Reinforcement learning for proposing smoking cessation activities that build competencies: Combining two worldviews in a virtual coach - Data, analysis code, and appendix

description: This repository contains the data, analysis code, and appendix for the paper "Reinforcement learning for proposing smoking cessation activities that build competencies: Combining two worldviews in a virtual coach" by Nele Albers, Mark A. Neerincx, and Willem-Paul Brinkman. <br>The data and large parts of the analysis code have previously been published in the repository for the PhD thesis chapter by Nele Albers that can be found via this DOI: https://doi.org/10.4121/9c4d9c35-3330-4536-ab8d-d5bb237c277d. The data is unchanged, but some additional analyses have been added (e.g., reporting the characteristics of the participants of the repertory grid study with smokers, repeating the analysis for AQ1 for different discount factors) in this repository compared to the one for the PhD thesis chapter.<br><strong>Study</strong>The paper is based on data collected in three studies.<br>Study 1We conducted this study on the online crowdsourcing platform Prolific between 6 September and 16 November 2022. The Human Research Ethics Committee of Delft University of Technology granted ethical approval for the research (Letter of Approval number: 2338). <br>In this study, daily smokers who were contemplating or preparing to quit smoking first filled in a prescreening questionnaire and were then invited to a repertory grid study if they passed the prescreening. In the repertory grid study, participants were asked to divide sets of 3 preparatory activities for quitting smoking into two subgroups. Afterward, they rated all preparatory activities on the labels given to the subgroups.<br>Participants also rated all preparatory activities on the perceived ease of doing them and the perceived required time to do them. This data can be found in this repository: https://doi.org/10.4121/5198f299-9c7a-40f8-8206-c18df93ee2a0.<br>The study was pre-registered in the Open Science Framework (OSF): https://osf.io/cax6f.<br>Study 2We performed a second repertory grid study with smoking cessation experts between September and October 2022. These smoking cessation experts were also asked to divide sets of 3 preparatory activities for quitting smoking into two subgroups based on the question “When it comes to competencies for quitting smoking that smokers build by doing the activities, how are two activities alike in some way but different from the third activity?”<br>The study was pre-registered in OSF together with the repertory grid study with smokers: https://osf.io/cax6f. The same ethical approval also applies.<br>Study 3We conducted a third study on the online crowdsourcing platform Prolific. In this study, daily smokers interacted with the conversational agent Mel in up to five conversational sessions between 21 July and 27 August 2023. The Human Research Ethics Committee of Delft University of Technology granted ethical approval for the research (Letter of Approval number: 2939) on 31 March 2023.<br>In each session, participants were assigned a new activity for quitting smoking: one of 44 preparatory activities or one of 9 persuasive activities. 682 people started the first session and 349 people completed session 5.<br>The study was pre-registered in OSF: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/NUY4W.<br>The implementation of the conversational agent Mel is available online: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8302492.<br><strong>Data</strong>We provide data on the 3 studies:-Data on study 1 (e.g., the subgroup labels and activity ratings provided by smokers). Additional data from study 1 not used in this paper can be found here: https://doi.org/10.4121/5198f299-9c7a-40f8-8206-c18df93ee2a0. To reproduce our reporting of the characteristics of the participants of this study, you will also need to download data from this other repository. More information on this is provided in Readme-files in this repository.-Data on study 2 (e.g., the subgroup labels and activity ratings provided by experts, as well as the self-reported expertise of the experts).-Data on study 3:Data from participants' Prolific profiles (e.g., age, gender)Data from the prescreening questionnaire (e.g., smoking frequency, quitter self-identity)Data from the conversational sessions with Mel (e.g., effort spent on activities)Data from the post-questionnaire (e.g., smoking frequency, quitter self-identity)Data from the follow-up questionnaire (e.g., smoking frequency, quitter self-identity, weekly exercise amount)<em>The variable "rand_id" is a random participant identifier and can be used to link data from different data files.</em><br><strong>Analysis code</strong>All our analyses are based on either R or Python. We provide code to allow them to be reproduced.<br><strong>Appendix</strong>We also provide the paper's Appendix, which includes, for example, the formulations of the 44 preparatory and 9 persuasive activities.<br><br>In the case of questions, please contact Nele Albers (n.albers@tudelft.nl) or Willem-Paul Brinkman (w.p.brinkman@tudelft.nl).