Peer reviewed research paper SEFI Engineering Education congress 2018 Within higher engineering education, students have to learn to close knowledge gaps that arise in professional assignments, such as capstone projects. These knowledge gaps can be closed through simple inquiry, but can also require more rigorous research. Since professionals work under tight constraints, they face constant trade-offs between quality, risk and efficiency to find answers that are acceptable. This means engineers use pragmatic research tactics that aim for the highest chance to find answers that fit sufficiently to close knowledge gaps in order to solve the problem with optimal use of time and resources. The problem is that research and problem-solving literature richly supplies solid strategies suitable to plan the research in projects as a whole, but hardly supplies flexible tactics to search for information within a project. This paper reports pragmatic tactics that starting bachelor engineering professionals use to acquire sufficiently good answers to questions that arise in the context of their assignments. For this, we conducted semi-structured interviews among computer science engineers with three to five years of work experience. The study reveals three pragmatic tactics: concentric, iterative and probe-response. The ambition level of the project determines when questions are sufficiently answered, and we distinguish tree sufficiency levels: check for viable answer, boost critical demand and change the game. The aim of this research is to add a view that makes pragmatic research choices for novice engineers more open to discussion and realistic.
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In this article, the impact of strategic orientations on the use of digital marketing tactics and, subsequently, on the international business performance of small electronic retailers (e-retailers) in cross-border electronic commerce (e-commerce) is analysed. Furthermore, these relationships are compared between e-retailers originating in both developed and emerging e-commerce markets. Using a sample of 446 small business-to-consumer e-retailers from 20 European countries, we find that the deployment of digital marketing tactics has a positive effect on international business performance. Of the strategic orientations examined, foreign market orientation is most associated with the use of digital marketing tactics. Remarkably, growth orientation only has a positive effect on e-retailers from developed e-commerce markets, while customer orientation negatively affects e-retailers from emerging e-commerce markets. The differences between e-retailers from developed and emerging e-commerce markets are prominent and show that markets should not be considered as either uniform or generalisable.
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Despite the importance of sustainable fashion consumption, sustainable fashion retailers capture only a small segment of the overall fashion market. While existing research has thoroughly examined consumer drivers of purchasing sustainable fashion, little is known about how retailers perceive these drivers and whether their marketing tactics reflect these perceptions. This study investigates the alignment between retailers’ presumed drivers of sustainable fashion purchases and the marketing tactics they deploy. Based on interviews with 25 sustainable fashion retailers, analyzed through deductive thematic analysis, the results reveal a disconnect: while retailers identify personal benefits such as style and price as key drivers, their marketing tactics predominantly emphasize relaying generic information about sustainable fashion. Furthermore, the analysis reveals a persistent theoretical misalignment between presumed drivers and the tactics deployed, alongside narrow use of available marketing tactics. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications, highlighting the need for stronger collaboration between academia and practice to test and implement consumer-informed marketing tactics. Such alignment may help expand the reach of sustainable fashion within the broader fashion market.
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As smart solutions for healthcare (eHealth) are becoming increasingly widespread, apps and other digital devices may effectively complement various forms of psychotherapy. We point at children and adolescents in psychological therapy as a yet-underserved public for similar solutions. Moreover, a shared design sensibility between interaction designers, game designers, and therapists is still lacking. The Games 4 Therapy initiative was launched to address this problem space through practical design explorations. We illustrate its design research agenda, we call for more attention to children and adolescents as important recipients of digitally-mediated psychological therapies, and we offer actionable concepts and game design tactics for interaction designers and psychotherapists. Finally, we discuss our findings by "thinking through" a selection of conceptual design explorations, pointing at the characteristics and tactics we identified in our sketches.
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As smart solutions for healthcare (eHealth) are becoming increasingly widespread, apps and other digital devices may effectively complement various forms of psychotherapy. We point at children and adolescents in psychological therapy as a yet-underserved public for similar solutions. Moreover, a shared design sensibility between interaction designers, game designers, and therapists is still lacking. The Games 4 Therapy initiative was launched to address this problem space through practical design explorations. We illustrate its design research agenda, we call for more attention to children and adolescents as important recipients of digitally-mediated psychological therapies, and we offer actionable concepts and game design tactics for interaction designers and psychotherapists. Finally, we discuss our findings by "thinking through" a selection of conceptual design explorations, pointing at the characteristics and tactics we identified in our sketches.
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Analyses a number of climate negotiation records at the highest political level (country commitments), as well as at more technical negotiation levels (working out technical modalities).Offers readers essential insights into the factors that influence the success and failure of climate negotiations.Highlights the importance of flexibility and tactical maneouvers during the negotiation process.
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Shared governance in hospitals promotes the inclusion of nurses' expertise, knowledge and skills in organisational processes, and nurses increasingly fulfil positions in organisational hierarchies. However, incorporating nursing expertise in strategic governance structures might be complicated, as these structures are primarily linked to managerial and biomedical expertise. Drawing on a Foucauldian perspective on knowledge and power, intertwined and embedded in everyday (inter)actions, we study how newly appointed directors of nursing challenge these dominant ‘modes of knowing’. By focusing on a (Dutch) healthcare organisation, a large academic medical centre, we gained insight into how the history of director of nursing roles relates to how nursing expertise is valued. We gathered qualitative data (from multiple sources) to get close to the daily practices of these directors. In this way, we were able to highlight three tactics that enable directors to relate to new ‘knowledge-power knots’: (1) positioning, by creating more unity; (2) profiling, by showing significance and (3) powering, by being alert and intervening. With these tactics, the directors of nursing try to embed themselves and their expertise in hospital governance. This study contributes to an everyday understanding of power and the tactics that directors of nursing employ as an ongoing practice. This provides practical starting points for embedding nursing in governance and decision-making.
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If we want game-based learning to make learning enjoyable as well as effective and efficient, we need to increase learner's awareness of and ability in learning itself. At the heart of learning is metacognition: a learner's understanding of how knowledge is constructed through learning, and the repertoire of strategies, tactics, and monitoring processes that enact learning. The goal of this PhD research is to inform designers and researchers who want to support and improve metacognition of learners within game-based learning environments, by identifying, implementing, and evaluating generic design principles for metacognitive interventions.
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This article is about the Virtual Reality-Head Mounted Display (VR-HMD) as a model for contemporary ways of disciplining. The VR-HMD makes the observer discipline herself through the triggering of performance. Through specific strategies the VR-HMD addresses the body of the observer to perform in the mixed reality that is constructed in the interaction between the body and the VR-HMD. These strategies consist of approaches by the hardware developers and content creators to manage the subjectivity and visuality of the observer. Today’s body is not disciplined through formatted technics of the VR-HMD, but through self-disciplining of the observer’s active performance. This article will unravel the strategies within the game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR on the Playstation VR that are used to control the visuality and subjectivity. Through her interaction in the game the observer also becomes aware of her body and the ways that it is disciplined in. In the end, this article will argue that the VR-HMD should not only be understood as a strategic device that can discipline a neoliberal subject, but that the VR-HMD is a supercomplex intervention that could help us to become more corporeal literate of our bodies in the age of digital media.
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Background: Revealing tacit knowledge often is seen as very valuable for organizations, although it is usually challenging to enunciate and share this type of knowledge. Methods: This study uses a participatory design and the application of a board gaming simulation as instruments to extract tacit knowledge. To illustrate this application, the gaming simulation is played with entrepreneurs from horticulture. Horticulture represents a complex social system where tacit knowledge plays a major role in the trade process. A participatory design process is used to explore whether the design and play of gaming simulations enable participants to explicate their tacit knowledge. Participants’ participation in designing the gaming simulation explicated that reconstructing reality was a prerequisite for their commitment. Results: The results from playing simulation sessions show that participants were able to: (1) narrow down the anecdotic behaviour to a few factors; (2) to structure these factors; (3) explore how these factors relate to trade barriers and (4) to explain which tactics are applied to foster trade. Conclusion: The educational value of this study is that it helped entrepreneurs in understanding complex real-life situations.
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