Reducing academic procrastination: Designing an artifact to aid students

Masteroppgave i medie- og interaksjonsdesignMIX350MASV-MI

Enhancing Student Assignment Completion Through Gamified Mobile Applications: A Motivational Approach

This thesis explores the design of digital tools to encourage motivation for students in higher education. A design is proposed for an original prototype app that makes use of gamification techniques. Theories on improving motivation are discussed in the literature and those most suited to be implemented within a digital prototype are selected. To measure how well the prototype performs, we specifically use the delivery for coursework to be handed in a timely manner as a metric. User consultation in the form of a questionnaire is used to create part of the specification used in the prototype design. The prototype app is tested on a limited number of participants and the results reported. Results show that students using a mobile application with gamification features would be motivated to start their assignments earlier and be motivated to complete them on time however results also show that specific gamification features have more split opinions than others for e.g., the extrinsic rewards that users can earn when completing assignments and challenges. These rewards have very little tangible value to them so when earned by users, it doesn’t provide much nor does it motivate them to want to achieve more, users would prefer rewards that have a direct impact on them for e.g., being able to extend assignment deadlines. The Thesis offers theoretical and practical contributions to research and design of motivation and the use of gamification in a mobile application

EU transfers and the next financial framework

The main aim of the paper is to display and analyse both the revenue and the expenditure side of the future budget which came to light in the Commission proposal concerning the EU new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) of 2014-2020. Efforts were also made to clarify the interests lying behind claims and different behaviour of the member states vis-a-vis the common European budget. All available EU documents on MFF were exploited, especially those published concerning the Commission proposal at the end of June 2011. As a very interesting observation, it was revealed that the Commission proposal rather favours the old and/or developed member states than the new and/or underdeveloped ones. Considering the amount of efforts needed to surmount the crisis and to stabilise public finances, considering in addition the weakening propensity of net contributors to the budget (especially that of Germany) to place EU-cooperation before their own national interests, it is to be feared that the next MFF will not be the one to accelerate the catching-up process of the less developed regions of Europe.EU-budget, Multiannual financial framework (MFF), Common agricultural policy (CAP), Cohesion policy, net position, own resources, British rebate

Transitions in the Design Process

The proposed research uses empirical methods to investigate designers’ use of research throughout the design process with an emphasis on research and idea generation. The goal is to explore the factors which impact the various phases of the design process. The early phase of the design process is often referred to as the “fuzzy front end” where many variables are still in play and the design direction is not completely agreed upon. This is also when the designer is conducting user research. The connection between the user research and the design solutions that designers move forward is critical. This connection creates a space in which the designer can ensure they are approaching this process as a user-centered process. This research explores these topics through observation of junior level industrial design students at one Midwestern university in a project-based design studio and takes place for the duration of one project. A total of four students were observed. The structure was set up that they were a team for early research, then splitting into three separate projects where two students worked together and two worked individually. The researcher’s observations for each designer are then followed up by a reflection interview in which the designer was asked to reflect on their own design process and to investigate their thought processes in choosing which research information they felt applied to their solutions and how this implementation might impact the outcome. This method is used to observe actions and behaviors during the design process allowing for observation of designers in their natural setting. Therefor the question of what happens to research throughout the design process is explored. Building on new research in cognitive and decision sciences, along with studies of design students, the goal is to study the role of research throughout the design process. Possible application of this research would be in developing a framework that demonstrates implementation techniques of this knowledge for new teaching methods, among others

Procrastination on social networking sites: types, triggers, and socio-technical countermeasures.

Procrastination has become an important field in academic research and refers to a voluntary delay in performing tasks that need to be done. Procrastination can lead to negative consequences such as low academic performance, low work productivity and anxiety. Numerous studies have examined the factors that may lead people to procrastinate, such as low self-efficacy, low self-regulation and low self-esteem. Social networking sites (SNSs) may facilitate procrastination; for example, notifications could be a distraction that promotes procrastination for people, preventing them from performing their original tasks. This Thesis aims to understand how procrastination on SNS occurs, the role of SNS design in triggering it and how to engineer social media to combat it through existing and novel features. Then, this knowledge will be used to develop a method to combat procrastination on SNS. This method will be informed by psychological theories as well as technical and socio-technical countermeasures. To achieve this goal, a mixed methods approach was conducted with SNS users, including focus groups and diary studies, co-design sessions and surveys. The results of these studies helped to develop a method that helps users to gain more control over their procrastination on SNS. The developed method is supported by persuasive techniques including reminders and suggestions, which help to persuade users to change their usage style without forcing them toward the change. Finally, the developed method was evaluated with SNS users who self-declared as procrastinators on SNS. The evaluation study examines five aspects: clarity, procrastination awareness, coverage, effectiveness and acceptance. The results demonstrated that the combating procrastination on SNS method (D-Crastinate) helps to improve users’ control over their procrastination

DESIGNING AMSL – A MOBILE DIGITAL ASSISTANT FOR SELF-REGULATED LEARNING

Self-regulated learning (SRL) is an important skill for academic performance. Still, most university students show deficiencies in one or all areas of SRL. This skill gap can negatively impact the learning process, leading to subpar outcomes or even students dropping out of tertiary education. The good news is that self-regulated learning can be taught. However, traditional learning formats such as coaching or online courses come with the limitations of either not scaling well or lacking effectiveness. Mobile digital assistants represent one promising approach to address these problems. This work presents the preliminary results of an ongoing design science research project to design the mobile digital assistant Amsl. We describe initial design knowledge in the form of meta requirements, design principles, and design decisions. In addition, we describe the first instantiation of Amsl, intending to help students become successful self-regulated learners

Evaluating Persuasion in a Digital Learning Environment

The massification of higher education has produced cohorts of students with varying motivation and ability to meet their academic potential. Providing individualised support is not always feasible for instructors as class sizes continue to grow, so this research evaluates the persuasive design of a digital learning environment (DLE) to address the aforementioned issue. A system with persuasive features called Task-Test-Monitor (TTM) was used by students for a semester at an Australian university. At the conclusion of the semester, students were surveyed on their experience of using the system. Results showed students were strongly in favour of using such a system to help them study, with a significant portion of respondents reporting that the system influenced how they studied. Educators and system designers can benefit from these findings by applying persuasive design principles used in this research in their own pedagogy or system designs

Open Innovation: An Empirical Study of Online Contests

Online contests for open innovation – seekers posting innovation projects to which solvers submit solutions – have been developed into a new online commerce model. This study is one of the first to lift the veil of online contests. We identify that real world online contests are very different from what is assumed by previous studies. A real world online contest has uncertain number of solvers due to dynamic participation process. Feedback can encourage solvers to contribute more than the equilibrium effort. With a given award, if the seeker\u27s feedback effort is high enough, the emerging number of solvers is a proxy measure of contest performance. By examining large-scale data from an online contest marketplace, we find that a contest with higher award, longer duration, shorter description, lower time cost, and higher popularity will attract more solvers. Specifically simple and ideation based projects are the most efficient in capturing solvers