E-Textiles: A Soft Touch Barometer for Female Students to Self-Manage Their Stress

Abstract

The surge in student anxiety and stress in universities continues to escalate, and with over 50% of young people now going to university, and finite university support resources available, finding complementary ways to support student wellbeing is essential. Enabling students to recognise, understand and manage their in-the moment stress can empower them to take some control over their own mental health. This paper focuses on female students. It adopts a mixed methodology approach of experiential learning informed by themes of social and technology acceptance. Overlapping methodologies including "what if … ?" scenarios around wellbeing are posed to inspire textile-based concepts as an intervention. The research presents novel approaches and proposes five early design concepts to consider the monitoring, management and prevention of female student stress through the design of crafted, wearer-centred e-textiles. The research is underpinned by both quantitative and qualitative data generated at Janet Coulter is a senior lecturer and researcher in fashion design at Ulster University. She holds a PhD in fashion technology, an MBA, an MSc. in multimedia computer-based learning, and a postgraduate diploma in Higher Education. Her research interests centre around technology in fashion to support emotional wellbeing. Her collaborative and interdisciplinary research in fashion focus on digital technologies and bio-materials for sustainable fashion

Emerging AI Technologies Inspiring the Next Generation of E-Textiles

“…Investigative methods into the digital fabrication of fibres is being researched where inbuilt functionality provides in-fibre storage programs, data storage, sensors and digital communication, such a fabrication structured process proposes uniform placement of discrete in-fibre electronic devices that will carry out such functionality. Researchers are actively thinking outside the box about new and potentially disruptive innovative ways to fuse AI with e-textiles moving away from the traditional textile world as we know it [30], [31]. This is sparking a renewed interest in this domain and shows promise of real impact across multiple sectors.…”