Purchasing Behaviour in Multi-Ethnic Society, Computer Brand Preferences

This research is one of a series of research attempting to examine multi-ethnic consumer’s attitude in ethnically diverse societies. This research also attempt to determine factors that influence consumer preference of computing products in a multi-ethnic society such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The objectives of this study is to determine the influence of multi-ethnicity on attitudes toward consumer brands, and to compare attitudes toward purchasing decisions by various ethnicities and factors influencing intention of purchase. Significance of the study lays in the tremendous need by suppliers and venders to determine the nature of demand and consumer preference in particular products, which will allow marketing managers and suppliers an insight into a strategic market segment in highly multi- ethnic society. Findings of this study reveals that consumer in high ethnically divers society such as the UAE tends to emphasize the importance of quality, looks, performance and international warranty and strong brand image. This study also finds that consumer brands of laptop markets in the UAE consist of highly knowledgeable consumer base. Word-of-mouth, family and friends were the most determinants factors influencing the buying decision in consumer brands of computing machines in the UAE

Myths and Fables of Electroconvulsive Therapy: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Stigmas of ECT in College Students

This study builds upon extensive research on Electroconvulsive Therapy’s (ECT) effectiveness and advancements over time while providing insight into its continuous stigmatization as a psychotherapeutic treatment. The literature provided in this paper explores ECT’s historical background and its misrepresentations in society commonly perpetuated in the media. To further examine present day perceptions of ECT, this study evaluated Bard College undergraduate students’ (n = 24) knowledge, attitudes, and stigmas towards ECT. The data was collected using a five part questionnaire concerning the socio-demographic of participants (part 1), stigmas about ECT (part 2), knowledge about ECT (part 3), sources of knowledge of ECT (part 4), and attitudes towards ECT (part 5). Findings illustrate that students with more stigmatized beliefs had more negative attitudes towards ECT. Students studying in the Science, Math, & Computing (SMC) Department had significantly more positive attitudes towards ECT than students studying in the Social Studies (SS) Department. Where students learned or heard of ECT, specifically ‘Internet’ and ‘Non-medical Books’, impacted both knowledge and attitude rates. Students who learned about ECT from three or more sources of knowledge had more positive attitudes and lower stigmatized beliefs towards ECT than students who had two or less sources of knowledge. This study contributes to research which aims to provide a more balanced depiction of ECT and should inspire continued exploration in this domain. Keywords: ECT, stigmas, knowledge, attitudes, sources of knowledg

Professional students’ technology readiness, prior computing experience and acceptance of an e-learning system / Lai Ming Ling and Chong Moi Moi

This study examines professional students’ state of technology readiness, prior computing experience and acceptance of an e-learning system. We administered 2,189 questionnaires on students pursuing the professional examinations in Malaysia. A total of 453 usable questionnaires were received. Rockbridge Associates Inc (1999), the survey found that professional accounting students were neither highly techno-ready nor highly technoresistant. The respondents were classified into five categories, explorers (9%), pioneers (35%), skeptics (39%), paranoids (14%) and technology laggards (3%). Overall, the findings showed that the respondents had strong usage intentions of e-learning system; they exhibited positive attitudes towards elearning, and perceived that e-learning system was easy to use and was useful in enhancing their academic performance. This study provides the insight that professional bodies ought to intensify information and communication technologies (ICT) integration into the accounting education curriculum and assessment policies, and to motivate professional students in using ICT and e-learning

VISTAS Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Emerging Research on Education, Economy and Community

Abstracts of presentations given at the VISTAS Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Emerging Research on Education, Economy and Communit

An evaluation of a professional learning network for computer science teachers

This paper describes and evaluates aspects of a professional development programme for existing CS teachers in secondary schools (PLAN C) which was designed to support teachers at a time of substantial curricular change. The paper’s particular focus is on the formation of a teacher professional development network across several hundred teachers and a wide geographical area. Evidence from a series of observations and teacher surveys over a two-year period is analysed with respect to the project’s programme theory in order to illustrate not only whether it worked as intended, by why. Results indicate that the PLAN C design has been successful in increasing teachers’ professional confidence and appears to have catalysed powerful change in attitudes to learning. Presentation of challenging pedagogical content knowledge and conceptual frameworks, high-quality teacher-led professional dialogue, along with the space for reflection and classroom trials, triggered examination of the teachers’ own current practices

To boardrooms and sustainability: the changing nature of segmentation

Market segmentation is the process by which customers in markets with some heterogeneity are grouped into smaller homogeneous segments of more ‘similar’ customers. A market segment is a group of individuals, groups or organisations sharing similar characteristics and buying behaviour that cause them to have relatively similar needs and purchasing behaviour. Segmentation is not a new concept: for six decades marketers have, in various guises, sought to break-down a market into sub-groups of users, each sharing common needs, buying behavior and marketing requirements. However, this approach to target market strategy development has been rejuvenated in the past few years. Various reasons account for this upsurge in the usage of segmentation, examination of which forms the focus of this white paper. Ready access to data enables faster creation of a segmentation and the testing of propositions to take to market. ‘Big data’ has made the re-thinking of target market segments and value propositions inevitable, desirable, faster and more flexible. The resulting information has presented companies with more topical and consumer-generated insights than ever before. However, many marketers, analytics directors and leadership teams feel over-whelmed by the sheer quantity and immediacy of such data. Analytical prowess in consultants and inside client organisations has benefited from a stepchange, using new heuristics and faster computing power, more topical data and stronger market insights. The approach to segmentation today is much smarter and has stretched well away from the days of limited data explored only with cluster analysis. The coverage and wealth of the solutions are unimaginable when compared to the practices of a few years ago. Then, typically between only six to ten segments were forced into segmentation solutions, so that an organisation could cater for these macro segments operationally as well as understand them intellectually. Now there is the advent of what is commonly recognised as micro segmentation, where the complexity of business operations and customer management requires highly granular thinking. In support of this development, traditional agency/consultancy roles have transitioned into in-house business teams led by data, campaign and business change planners. The challenge has shifted from developing a granular segmentation solution that describes all customers and prospects, into one of enabling an organisation to react to the granularity of the solution, deploying its resources to permit controlled and consistent one-to-one interaction within segments. So whilst the cost of delivering and maintaining the solution has reduced with technology advances, a new set of systems, costs and skills in channel and execution management is required to deliver on this promise. These new capabilities range from rich feature creative and content management solutions, tailored copy design and deployment tools, through to instant messaging middleware solutions that initiate multi-streams of activity in a variety of analytical engines and operational systems. Companies have recruited analytics and insight teams, often headed by senior personnel, such as an Insight Manager or Analytics Director. Indeed, the situations-vacant adverts for such personnel out-weigh posts for brand and marketing managers. Far more companies possess the in-house expertise necessary to help with segmentation analysis. Some organisations are also seeking to monetise one of the most regularly under-used latent business assets… data. Developing the capability and culture to bring data together from all corners of a business, the open market, commercial sources and business partners, is a step-change, often requiring a Chief Data Officer. This emerging role has also driven the professionalism of data exploration, using more varied and sophisticated statistical techniques. CEOs, CFOs and COOs increasingly are the sponsor of segmentation projects as well as the users of the resulting outputs, rather than CMOs. CEOs because recession has forced re-engineering of value propositions and the need to look after core customers; CFOs because segmentation leads to better and more prudent allocation of resources – especially NPD and marketing – around the most important sub-sets of a market; COOs because they need to better look after key customers and improve their satisfaction in service delivery. More and more it is recognised that with a new segmentation comes organisational realignment and change, so most business functions now have an interest in a segmentation project, not only the marketers. Largely as a result of the digital era and the growth of analytics, directors and company leadership teams are becoming used to receiving more extensive market intelligence and quickly updated customer insight, so leading to faster responses to market changes, customer issues, competitor moves and their own performance. This refreshing of insight and a leadership team’s reaction to this intelligence often result in there being more frequent modification of a target market strategy and segmentation decisions. So many projects set up to consider multi-channel strategy and offerings; digital marketing; customer relationship management; brand strategies; new product and service development; the re-thinking of value propositions, and so forth, now routinely commence with a segmentation piece in order to frame the ongoing work. Most organisations have deployed CRM systems and harnessed associated customer data. CRM first requires clarity in segment priorities. The insights from a CRM system help inform the segmentation agenda and steer how they engage with their important customers or prospects. The growth of CRM and its ensuing data have assisted the ongoing deployment of segmentation. One of the biggest changes for segmentation is the extent to which it is now deployed by practitioners in the public and not-for-profit sectors, who are harnessing what is termed social marketing, in order to develop and to execute more shrewdly their targeting, campaigns and messaging. For Marketing per se, the interest in the marketing toolkit from non-profit organisations, has been big news in recent years. At the very heart of the concept of social marketing is the market segmentation process. The extreme rise in the threat to security from global unrest, terrorism and crime has focused the minds of governments, security chiefs and their advisors. As a result, significant resources, intellectual capability, computing and data management have been brought to bear on the problem. The core of this work is the importance of identifying and profiling threats and so mitigating risk. In practice, much of this security and surveillance work harnesses the tools developed for market segmentation and the profiling of different consumer behaviours. This white paper presents the findings from interviews with leading exponents of segmentation and also the insights from a recent study of marketing practitioners relating to their current imperatives and foci. More extensive views of some of these ‘leading lights’ have been sought and are included here in order to showcase the latest developments and to help explain both the ongoing surge of segmentation and the issues under-pinning its practice. The principal trends and developments are thereby presented and discussed in this paper

Female Under-Representation in Computing Education and Industry - A Survey of Issues and Interventions

This survey paper examines the issue of female under-representation in computing education and industry, which has been shown from empirical studies to be a problem for over two decades. While various measures and intervention strategies have been implemented to increase the interest of girls in computing education and industry, the level of success has been discouraging. The primary contribution of this paper is to provide an analysis of the extensive research work in this area. It outlines the progressive decline in female representation in computing education. It also presents the key arguments that attempt to explain the decline and intervention strategies. We conclude that there is a need to further explore strategies that will encourage young female learners to interact more with computer educational games