Report: Authentication Diary Study

Users have developed various coping strategies for minimizing or avoiding the friction and burden associated with managing and using their portfolios of user IDs and passwords or personal identification numbers (PINs). Many try to use the same password (or different versions of the same password) across different systems. Others use memory aids or technological assistants such as password management software. We were interested in these coping strategies and the ,friction pointsŠ that prompt people to use them. More broadly, we wanted to address a pressing research need by gathering data for user-centered models of how people interact with security as part of their daily life, as empirical research in that area is currently lacking

Cognition-aware systems to support information intake and learning

Knowledge is created at an ever-increasing pace putting us under constant pressure to consume and acquire new information. Information gain and learning, however, require time and mental resources. While the proliferation of ubiquitous computing devices, such as smartphones, enables us to consume information anytime and anywhere, technologies are often disruptive rather than sensitive to the current user context. While people exhibit different levels of concentration and cognitive capacity throughout the day, applications rarely take these performance variations into account and often overburden their users with information or fail to stimulate. This work investigates how technology can be used to help people effectively deal with information intake and learning tasks through cognitive context-awareness. By harvesting sensor and usage data from mobile devices, we obtain people's levels of attentiveness, receptiveness, and cognitive performance. We subsequently use this cognition-awareness in applications to help users process information more effectively. Through a series of lab studies, online surveys, and field experiments we follow six research questions to investigate how to build cognition-aware systems. Awareness of user's variations in levels of attention, receptiveness, and cognitive performance allows systems to trigger appropriate content suggestions, manage user interruptions, and adapt User Interfaces in real-time to match tasks to the user's cognitive capacities. The tools, insights, and concepts described in this book allow researchers and application designers to build systems with an awareness of momentary user states and general circadian rhythms of alertness and cognitive performance

Use of C-Map as a Cognitive Tool in Collaborative and Individual Concept Mapping for Enhancing ELL Students\u27 Reading Comprehension

Among those who teach English to English Language Learners (ELL), reading comprehension is considered an essential language skill critical for knowledge acquisition and information exchange. However, in various parts of the world, including Jordan, reading comprehension has been reported as a difficult area for ELL students to master. The purpose of this study was to investigate in-depth the impact of the use of the reading software C-map as a cognitive tool in collaborative and individual concept mapping to promote reading comprehension among ELL readers. The independent variable of this study was concept mapping, which functioned on three levels: collaborative, individual, and control groups. There were four dependent variables: reviewing, listing, enforcing, and overall reading comprehension. 106 ELL high school students from Jordan, aged 17-18 years, participated in the study as subjects, divided into three groups: a collaborative group of 32, an individual group of 36, and a control group of 38. All groups were instructed by the same high school ELL English teacher for 10 weeks. Both the ELL English teacher and the rater received training appropriate to their responsibilities. At the outset of the study, all ELL students took the same pretest individually. They then underwent orientation training appropriate to their groups. Over the course of the study, the students’ work was rated using the same rubric 10 times, one time per a week. At the conclusion of the study, all subjects took the same post-test individually. All instructional materials were accredited by the Jordanian Ministry of Education and the reliability and the validity of study instruments were ensured. The collected data was analyzed quantitatively using the independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA. Results, limitations, and recommendations were discussed and interpreted in light of study’s purpose, questions, and hypotheses

Reclaiming Craftsmanship

In upcoming years, many institutions in the private and public sectors will lose valuable organizational knowledge due to organizational restructuring, departmental consolidation, retirements and attrition. This can have a potentially crippling effect on organizational effectiveness and service delivery. Organizations need to establish processes and develop tools that allow them to capture employees know-how-and-know-what, and disseminate that information and knowledge to other employees. In the age of the digital economy, the temptation appears to be to introduce technology to capture codifiable data, resulting in the inadvertent undervaluing of the personal knowledge and expertise accumulated by their employees over many years of practical experience. My focus is on personal knowledge, particularly concerning acquisition and transmission. Approaching the research from a post-positivist as well as a pragmatist approach, I have sought to identify and understand the factors that influence people to share knowledge and conversely how people learn from others, through mentoring for example. Within this context, I advocate for the return to the spirit of craftsmanship and reclaim the ideas of learning by doing, having more human-to-human connections to learn from, and taking the time to be engaged in mastering a practice. My goal has been to question rather than to pursue a definite explanation for how the acquisition and transmission of personal knowledge unfolds. As a pragmatist, I approach the idea of knowledge as a derivative of our engagement and active experience with the world. To this end, I added an applied element to this dissertation; I have included a working prototype of a platform for people to share their skills and interact with others in their network. This software application also acts as a repository of data for my research and for topics related to personal knowledge. For example, it includes an Alphabet of Personal Knowledge wherein I briefly examine the etymology and use of selected words in the context of knowledge acquisition and sharing. My interest lies in using multi-dimensional methods that complement each other with the express goal of creating new knowledge that can in turn be used to improve mentoring and knowledge sharing programs

Infusing thinking skills into an L2 classroom : a case study of an innovation in a Taiwanese university

PhD ThesisEmpirical research on higher-order questions has shown positive impact on student achievement in L1 and L2 classrooms in western countries and former British colonies. In association, a world-wide increase in teaching thinking has led to a debate about its applicability to L2 settings, especially to Asian learners. In Taiwan speaking has been identified as a problematic area in L2 learning and alongside equipping students with thinking skills has been highlighted as a goal of Higher Education (HE). Therefore, this study undertook a case study of an innovation where Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) approach was used to try and enhance students' L2 speaking proficiency and thinking skills. This approach had two steps. In a teacher-led setting the innovator modelled the tasks to the students which focused on how to answer higher-order questions, interact and comment on others' opinions. Students then practiced the thinking tasks in groups as part of their L2 learning. The impact on speaking and thinking and the effect on students' attitudes were examined to determine the practicability of this approach in a Taiwanese university L2 classroom. Two classes of non-English major freshmen participated in this study: one class received the innovation, while the other class did not. A mixed-method approach was applied and data collected in three phases: pre-, post- and delayed post-test. In contrast to Atkinson's (1997) claim that using a critical thinking pedagogy to teach non-native speakers of English in L2 classrooms is inappropriate, the findings show strong evidence to support the idea that a HOTS approach enhances learners' speaking and thinking performance with the majority of students holding positive attitudes. This indicates infusing thinking skills into the L2 classroom is practicable and students can be trained as active thinkers. A most significant finding was the occurrence of highcognitive interactive talk, which created numerous opportunities for speaking and thinking. This tackled the L2 speaking problems observed and met the goals of HE, i. e. it equipped university students with thinking skills and encouraged active learnin

Developing Adults\u27 Oral English Communicative Competence in an EFL Environment: Collaborative Studies of a Chinese EFL Teacher and Her Students

Economic and educational globalization presents Chinese college students with career and academic incentives to develop their oral English communicative competence; however, at the secondary level, students study English mainly for the purpose of written tests. As a result, their oral English learning is largely overlooked. In addition, significant challenges exist for learning oral English at the college level: large-sized classes, an English-as-a-foreign-language-learning (EFL) environment, traditional rote learning, student diversity, and different English-learning histories. This research aims at investigating effective teaching pedagogy suitable for large-sized college classes of students developing oral communicative competence in an EFL environment. With Vygotsky sociocultural theory as a foundation, I apply practitioner action research to conduct two phases of study. The action applies a collaborative, communication-oriented pedagogy in a large-sized oral English class. In phase one of the study, students\u27 group or pair work on communicative activities promotes and facilitates their social interactions in an EFL environment that enhance comprehensible input and output. In phase two of the study, continual practicing of communicative activities in groups or pairs facilitates their oral English grammatical knowledge, speaking strategies and sociocultural discourse rules through meaning negotiation and EFL teacher and or learners\u27 collaboration and assistance. Also, practicing communicative activities actively engages students in their own learning process and offers a new role for the EFL teacher: introducing language social rules, directing students to resources, encouraging peer-to-peer assistance, and focusing on feedback that enhances strategic competence. Therefore, I suggest that for developing students\u27 oral English communicative competence in an EFL environment with large-sized classes, consistent group or pair work using diverse communicative activities should be applied.\u2