During the persuasive technology symposium, Marije Deutekom - Baart de la Faille and colleagues organised a symposium session with 4 presentations: • Presentation 1: A home based exercise program: are older adults able to use mHealth technology? (Sumit Mehra). • Presentation 2: Promoting healthy diet and physical activity in children through the use of games: bridging the gap between industry and science (Monique Simons). • Presentation 3: Increased motivation for exercise through exercise apps such as BAMBEA (Joey van der Bie & Nicky Nibbeling) • Presentation 4: Which factors are important for effectiveness of sport- and health-related apps? Results of focus groups with experts (Joan Dallinga).
Presenting is considered as a core skill for the higher-educated professional (De Grez, 2009). However, many graduated students often fail to show effective presentation behaviors (Chan, 2011) and suffer from presentation anxiety Smith & Sodano, 2011). The development of presentation skills, therefore, is a crucial objective in higher education. While previous research emphasized the essence of practice and feedback opportunities for fostering students’ presentation skills and overcoming presentation anxiety (Van Ginkel et al., 2015), issues have been reported in educational practice that prevent the optimal development of the time consuming skill. These issues involve, amongst others, time constrains and the high workload of teachers (Adubra et al., 2019). Interestingly, studies have shown that innovative technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) are valuable for offering practice opportunities and delivering personalized, automated feedback within presentation tasks (Van Ginkel et al., 2019). However, the previously studied automated feedback consisted of quantitative feedback reports which had to be interpreted by a teacher. Nowadays, technological developments allow the conversion of quantitative information into qualitative feedback messages that are constructed based on high-quality feedback criteria (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Therefore, this experimental study aims to investigate the impact of qualitative automated feedback messages on students’ presentation skills (post-test only) and the development of presentation anxiety (pre-test post-test design). This experimental condition is compared with a validated control condition in which a teacher interprets quantitative, automatedfeedback reports. For data collection, validated rubrics and questionnaires are adopted. Besides, perceptions towards the utility of the feedback are assessed. The results of this study reveal no significant difference in presentation skills scores between the two feedback conditions. Moreover, students in both groups perceived the feedback and the feedback source as equally valuable for their presentation skills development. Interestingly, a significant decrease in presentation anxiety was determined from pre-test to post-test, without a significant differential impact. Findings of this study suggest that the integration of qualitative feedback messages in VR is effective for students’ presentation skills development. Moreover, practicing a presentation in VR and receiving automated feedback significantly decreases presentation anxiety. Insights from this study contribute to reducing the workload of teachers and challenging teachers in professionalizing to their new roles as coaches supporting students’ learning processes (Adubra et al., 2019). Future studies should focus on how effectively integrating peer-to-peer learning in VR-based education could further support teachers in constructing skills education within the digital era.
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Although several studies have looked at the effects of online product presentations on consumer decision making, no study thus far has considered a potential key factor in online product evaluations: tangibility. The present study aims at filling this gap by developing and testing a model that relates different online product presentation formats to the three-dimensional concept of product tangibility. We test how the three tangibility dimensions influence perceived diagnosticity and, eventually, online purchase intentions.
Digital transformation has been recognized for its potential to contribute to sustainability goals. It requires companies to develop their Data Analytic Capability (DAC), defined as their ability to collect, manage and analyze data effectively. Despite the governmental efforts to promote digitalization, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how to proceed, with 37% of Dutch SMEs reporting a lack of knowledge, and 33% reporting a lack of support in developing DAC. Participants in the interviews that we organized preparing this proposal indicated a need for guidance on how to develop DAC within their organization given their unique context (e.g. age and experience of the workforce, presence of legacy systems, high daily workload, lack of knowledge of digitalization). While a lot of attention has been given to the technological aspects of DAC, the people, process, and organizational culture aspects are as important, requiring a comprehensive approach and thus a bundling of knowledge from different expertise. Therefore, the objective of this KIEM proposal is to identify organizational enablers and inhibitors of DAC through a series of interviews and case studies, and use these to formulate a preliminary roadmap to DAC. From a structure perspective, the objective of the KIEM proposal will be to explore and solidify the partnership between Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), Avans University of Applied Sciences (Avans), Logistics Community Brabant (LCB), van Berkel Logistics BV, Smink Group BV, and iValueImprovement BV. This partnership will be used to develop the preliminary roadmap and pre-test it using action methodology. The action research protocol and preliminary roadmap thereby developed in this KIEM project will form the basis for a subsequent RAAK proposal.
Aanleiding Nieuwsuitgeverijen bevinden zich in zwaar weer. Economische malaise en toegenomen concurrentie in het pluriforme medialandschap dwingen uitgeverijen om enerzijds kosten te besparen en tegelijkertijd te investeren in innovatie. De verdere automatisering van de nieuwsredactie vormt hierbij een uitdaging. Buiten de branche ontstaan technieken die uitgeverijen hierbij zouden kunnen gebruiken. Deze zijn nog niet 'vertaald' naar gebruiksvriendelijke systemen voor redactieprocessen. De deelnemers aan het project formuleren voor dit braakliggend terrein een praktijkgericht onderzoek. Doelstelling Dit onderzoek wil antwoord geven op de vraag: Hoe kunnen bewezen en nieuw te ontwikkelen technieken uit het domein van 'natural language processing' een bijdrage leveren aan de automatisering van een nieuwsredactie en het journalistieke product? 'Natural language processing' - het automatisch genereren van taal - is het onderwerp van het onderzoek. In het werkveld staat deze ontwikkeling bekend als 'automated journalism' of 'robotjournalistiek'. Het onderzoek richt zich enerzijds op ontwikkeling van algoritmes ('robots') en anderzijds op de impact van deze technologische ontwikkelingen op het nieuwsveld. De impact wordt onderzocht uit zowel het perspectief van de journalist als de nieuwsconsument. De projectdeelnemers ontwikkelen binnen dit onderzoek twee prototypes die samen het automated-journalismsysteem vormen. Dit systeem gaat tijdens en na het project gebruikt worden door onderzoekers, journalisten, docenten en studenten. Beoogde resultaten Het concrete resultaat van het project is een prototype van een geautomatiseerd redactiesysteem. Verder levert het project inzicht op in de verankering van dit soort systemen binnen een nieuwsredactie. Het onderzoek biedt een nieuw perspectief op de manier waarop de nieuwsconsument de ontwikkeling van 'automated journalism' in Nederland waardeert. Het projectteam deelt de onderzoekresultaten door middel van presentaties voor de uitgeverijbranche, presentaties op wetenschappelijke conferenties, publicaties in (vak)tijdschriften, reflectiebijeenkomsten met collega-opleidingen en een samenvattende white paper.
Evaluating player game experiences through biometric measurementsThe BD4CG (Biometric Design for Casual Games project) worked in a highly interdisciplinary context with several international partners. The aim of our project was to popularize the biometric method, which is a neuro-scientific approach to evaluating the player experience. We specifically aimed at the casual games sector, where casual games can be defined as video or web-based games with simple and accessible game mechanics, non threatening themes and generally short play sessions. Popular examples of casual games are Angry Birds and FarmVille. We focussed on this sector because it is growing fast, but its methodologies have not grown with it yet. Especially the biometrics method has so far been almost exclusively used domain by the very large game developers (such as Valve and EA). The insights and scientific output of this project have been enthusiastically embraced by the international academic arena. The aim of the grant was to focus on game producers in the casual sector, and we have done so but we also established further contacts with the game sector in general. Thirty-one outputs were generated, in the form of presentations, workshops, and accepted papers in prominent academic and industry journals in the field of game studies and game user research. Partners: University of Antwerpen, RANJ, Forward Games, Double Jungle, Realgames, Dreams of Danu, Codemasters, Dezzel, Truimph Studios, Golabi Studios
