Increasing students’ motivation in higher education by designing a specific curriculum has always been a challenging but very complex process. The Department of Business, Finance and Marketing (BFM) of The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) initiated a redesign of the curricula with the major goals of increasing flexibility of learning opportunities and offering students a more motivating, inspiring and richer diversity of learning experiences. In the literature of learning in higher education this has often been labeled as ‘offering extracurricular learning opportunities’. The redesign of the curriculum implies that the new one will result in an enhancement of the flexibility of the curriculum, by offering learning opportunities beyond the borders of specific programs like marketing, finance or entrepreneurship and retail management. The richness and diversity should create flexible platforms, offering students the possibility to enrich their career choices to design their own personalised career path, hopefully maximizing the possibilities for their talent development. However, very little is known about the relationship between the students’ satisfaction with extracurricular learning opportunities, aiming at the personalisation of students’ career choices, and their motivation. In this chapter we describe our research into this relationship between student motivation and learning environments. Designing a network curriculum by increasing the possibility of extracurricular learning opportunities in higher education could have a positive impact on students’ motivation when it is combined with activities to increase goal students’ commitment. This depends on teachers’ qualities to communicate the valence and instrumentality of the learning possibilities offered for the prospective work environment. This is a complex issue however. Teachers from different educational programs, even in the same domain, have a different orientation on existing learning opportunities within one specific program. Excellent coaching skills by tutors are important. These coaching skills are necessary to support students in the process of envisioning extracurricular learning opportunities when important career choices have to be made.
Within large service organizations there are currently two trends visible. These trends seem to be diametrically opposed. On the one hand organizations face increasing price pressure and thus a pressure to cut costs. One of the consequences of this trend is that organizations are increasingly encouraging customers to make more use of digital communication channels. At the same time, companies find it important to know their customers in order to respond adequately to their needs. To do this, organizations must have a certain degree of personal involvement to their customers and they must have regular personal contact. It is assumed that both trends – digitisation and personalisation – will have a strong impact on customer experience and (perhaps) on the relational models customers use. If it is true that relational models - so the way in which people perceive and assess a relationship - play a role in the perception of the customer, it is also interesting to know if it is possible to influence these relational models. During the last fifty years much research has been done into the possibilities to influence customers by using subliminal priming techniques. In these techniques thoughts and feelings are unconsciously activated by showing people certain words or images (eg Bargh, Chen & Burrows, 1996; Dijksterhuis, 2005). In recent years a number of experiments were performed in which customers were unconsciously primed at some type of relationship (eg Aggarwal, 2004; McGraw & Tetlock, 2005; Tuk, Verlegh, Smidts & Wigboldus, 2009). These experiments showed that it is possible to activate a certain type of relationship. The experiments however the researchers used scenario’s based on an interpersonal relationship, and often to a fictitious relationship. The question is whether priming techniques also work for an already existing and more complex relationship between an organization and its customers. From 2010-2013 we conducted research for six large service providers in banking, insurance, utilities and social welfare to discover what the customer experience of these organisations, what role relational models played in customer experience and whether it was possible to influence these relational models. The research project has provided answers to the following questions: - Which relational models are used by customers and what is the influence of these models on customer experience? - What is the influence of digitisation in customer communication on relational models and customer experience? - What is the influence of personalisation in customer communication on relational models and customer experience? And finally, - Is it possible to influence relational models (and customer experience) by using specific words and images that are associated with relational models (relational framing)?
Purpose: Breast cancer follow-up (surveillance and aftercare) varies from one-size-fits-all to more personalised approaches. A systematic review was performed to get insight in existing evidence on (cost-)efectiveness of personalised follow-up. Methods: PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane were searched between 01–01-2010 and 10–10-2022 (review registered in PROSPERO:CRD42022375770). The inclusion population comprised nonmetastatic breast cancer patients≥18 years, after completing curative treatment. All intervention-control studies studying personalised surveillance and/or aftercare designed for use during the entire follow-up period were included. All review processes including risk of bias assessment were performed by two reviewers. Characteristics of included studies were described. Results: Overall, 3708 publications were identifed, 64 full-text publications were read and 16 were included for data extraction. One study evaluated personalised surveillance. Various personalised aftercare interventions and outcomes were studied. Most common elements included in personalised aftercare plans were treatment summaries (75%), follow-up guidelines (56%), lists of available supportive care resources (38%) and PROs (25%). Control conditions mostly comprised usual care. Four out of seven (57%) studies reported improvements in quality of life following personalisation. Six studies (38%) found no personalisation efect, for multiple outcomes assessed (e.g. distress, satisfaction). One (6.3%) study was judged as low, four (25%) as high risk of bias and 11 (68.8%) as with concerns. Conclusion: The included studies varied in interventions, measurement instruments and outcomes, making it impossible to draw conclusions on the efectiveness of personalised follow-up. There is a need for a definition of both personalised surveillance and aftercare, whereafter outcomes can be measured according to uniform standards.
Creating and testing a Virtual Reality Therapy Application to reduce alcohol addiction. Develop and test a Virtual Reality application to be used in therapy, within Novadic Kentron, that helps people deal with alcohol addiction. By recreating real contexts in VR that either stimulate craving or elicit positive feelings, the VR application should increase, for example, self-confidence to deal with these situations and reduce relapse risks. In addition, together with students from BUas and other universities, we study the effects of different forms of realism and resemblance within virtual reality worlds. We are testing, among other things, differences between CGI-created and 360-recorded worlds that differ in level of personalisation.Partner:Novadic-Kentron
