Evaluation of the Perceived Persuasiveness Questionnaire:User-Centered Card-Sort Study

Background: eHealth technologies aim to change users’ health-related behavior. Persuasive design and system features can make an eHealth technology more motivating, engaging, or supportive to its users. The Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model incorporates software features that have the possibility to increase the persuasiveness of technologies. However, the effects of specific PSD software features on the effectiveness of an intervention are still largely unknown. The Perceived Persuasiveness Questionnaire (PPQ) was developed to gain insight into the working mechanisms of persuasive technologies. Although the PPQ seems to be a suitable method for measuring subjective persuasiveness, it needs to be further evaluated to determine how suitable it is for measuring perceived persuasiveness among the public. Objective: This study aims to evaluate the face and construct validity of the PPQ, identify points of improvement, and provide suggestions for further development of the PPQ. Methods: A web-based closed-ended card-sort study was performed wherein participants grouped existing PPQ items under existing PPQ constructs. Participants were invited via a Massive Open Online Course on eHealth. A total of 398 people (average age 44.15 years, SD 15.17; 251/398, 63.1% women) completed the card sort. Face validity was evaluated by determining the item-level agreement of the original PPQ constructs. Construct validity was evaluated by determining the construct in which each item was placed most often, regardless of the original placement and how often 2 items were (regardless of the constructs) paired together and what interitem correlations were according to a cluster analysis. Results: Four PPQ constructs obtained relatively high face validity scores: perceived social support, use continuance, perceived credibility, and perceived effort. Item-level agreement on the other constructs was relatively low. Item-level agreement for almost all constructs, except perceived effort and perceived effectiveness, would increase if items would be grouped differently. Finally, a cluster analysis of the PPQ indicated that the strengths of the newly identified 9 clusters varied strongly. Unchanged strong clusters were only found for perceived credibility support, perceived social support, and use continuance. The placement of the other items was much more spread out over the other constructs, suggesting an overlap between them. Conclusions: The findings of this study provide a solid starting point toward a redesigned PPQ that is a true asset to the field of persuasiveness research. To achieve this, we advocate that the redesigned PPQ should adhere more closely to what persuasiveness is according to the PSD model and to the mental models of potential end users of technology. The revised PPQ should, for example, enquire if the user thinks anything is done to provide task support but not how this is done exactly

DATA ANALYTICS AND PERSUASIVE TECHNOLOGY TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ ENGAGEMENT AND LEARNING

The use of interactive systems and internet technology nowadays enhance the process of learning as they allow educational resources to be effectively distributed and delivered to students. This gives students the opportunity to learn at their own pace and convenience. Hence, universities employ these computing technologies to aid in teaching and learning in order to meet the needs of diverse learners. Thus, students could engage in learning activities at any time and even outside the four walls of universities. Despite the usefulness of these systems, students find it hard to engage for a long time with these learning resources. They are distracted by so many activities such as chatting, playing games, listening to music, watching movies, etc. As a result, a wide gap exists in academic performance between successful students and unsuccessful one (those that drop out of universities). Therefore, there is a need for research on how to increase students’ motivation to learn. The level of motivation of students to learn and progress in their education determine the length of time they spend on learning-related activities. This research investigated the use of persuasive technology in encouraging students to spend quality time in their learning resources. Persuasive technology describes computer applications which change users’ behaviour or opinion without using coercion or deception. Specifically, this research examined the effect of three social influence strategies of persuasive technology (social comparison, social learning, and competition) on students’ engagement in their learning activities. Socially-oriented strategies recognize the fact that humans are socially-driven and thus, our feeling, behaviour or opinion is affected by that of others (social influence). The strategies were operationalized in a persuasive system as three versions of visualization using students’ assessment grades. The persuasive system was applied to a real university course-based setting to determine its effect on students’ engagement in their learning activities. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were used in determining the effectiveness of the persuasive system versions implementing the three strategies in motivating the students to engage actively in learning activities. The results of this research show that the three socially-oriented strategies of persuasive technology employed can be used in educational software to influence students to achieve a positive goal in their learning. Precisely, the persuasive system attracted and motivated students to spend more time in their learning activities

A personality-based behavioural model: Susceptibility to phishing on social networking sites

The worldwide popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) and the technical features they offer users have created many opportunities for malicious individuals to exploit the behavioral tendencies of their users via social engineering tactics. The self-representation and social interactions on SNSs encourage users to reveal their personalities in a way which characterises their behaviour. Frequent engagement on SNSs may also reinforce the performance of certain activities, such as sharing and clicking on links, at a “habitual” level on these sites. Subsequently, this may also influence users to overlook phishing posts and messages on SNSs and thus not apply sufficient cognitive effort in their decision-making. As users do not expect phishing threats on these sites, they may become accustomed to behaving in this manner which may consequently put them at risk of such attacks. Using an online survey, primary data was collected from 215 final-year undergraduate students. Employing structural equation modelling techniques, the associations between the Big Five personality traits, habits and information processing were examined with the aim to identify users susceptible to phishing on SNSs. Moreover, other behavioural factors such as social norms, computer self-efficacy and perceived risk were examined in terms of their influence on phishing susceptibility. The results of the analysis revealed the following key findings: 1) users with the personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism are more likely to perform habitual behaviour, while conscientious users are least likely; 2) users who perform certain behaviours out of habit are directly susceptible to phishing attacks; 3) users who behave out of habit are likely to apply a heuristic mode of processing and are therefore more susceptible to phishing attacks on SNSs than those who apply systematic processing; 4) users with higher computer self-efficacy are less susceptible to phishing; and 5) users who are influenced by social norms are at greater risk of phishing. This study makes a contribution to scholarship and to practice, as it is the first empirical study to investigate, in one comprehensive model, the relationship between personality traits, habit and their effect on information processing which may influence susceptibility to phishing on SNSs. The findings of this study may assist organisations in the customisation of an individual anti-phishing training programme to target specific dispositional factors in vulnerable users. By using a similar instrument to the one used in this study, pre-assessments could determine and classify certain risk profiles that make users vulnerable to phishing attacks.Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Commerce, Information Systems, 202

Impacto de las variables de personalidad en la respuesta ante situaciones de influencia

Tesis doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Psicología, Departamento de Psicología Social y Metodologia. Fecha de lectura: 02-07-2019Esta tesis tiene embargado el acceso al texto completo hasta el 02-01-202