Teaching psychology to computing students

The aim of this paper is twofold. The first aim is to discuss some observations gained from teaching Psychology to Computing students, highlighting both the wide range of areas where Psychology is relevant to Computing education and the topics that are relevant at different stages of students’ education. The second aim is to consider findings from research investigating the characteristics of Computing and Psychology students. It is proposed that this information could be considered in the design and use of Psychology materials for Computing students. The format for the paper is as follows. Section one will illustrate the many links between the disciplines of Psychology & Computing; highlighting these links helps to answer the question that many Computing students ask, what can Psychology offer to Computing? Section two will then review some of the ways that I have been involved in teaching Psychology to Computing students, from A/AS level to undergraduate and postgraduate level. Section three will compare the profiles of Computing and Psychology students (e.g. on age, gender and motivation to study), to highlight how an understanding of these factors can be used to adapt Psychology teaching materials for Computing students. The conclusions which cover some practical suggestions are presented in section four

Comparing the cognitive profile of the HCI professional and the HCI educator

Previous research into Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) education has focussed mainly on the curriculum, pedagogy and the gap between education, and little is known about the cognitive profile of the HCI practitioner or educator, or how their individual differences impact upon practice in the field or the classroom. This research intends to address this gap by investigating the cognitive style of HCI practitioners, educators, and those with both roles. 315 professionals responded to a global online survey which captured their individual cognitive style using the Allinson and Hayes Cognitive Style Index (CSI) which tests whether the subject tends more towards an intuitivist or analyst, and the Object-Spatial Imagery and Verbal Questionnaire (OSIVQ) which suggests a three dimensional model of cognitive style – object imagers who prefer to construct pictorial images, spatial imagers who prefer schematic representations and verbalizers who prefer to use verbal-analytical tools. Together, these two instruments provide a profile that matches the skills required to work within the field of HCI. The respondents included practitioners in the field (N=179), educators (N=61), and some who were both practitioner and educator (N=75). A one-way between-groups ANOVA and MANOVA was performed to investigate differences in the role of the professional, and the CSI and OSIVQ profiles respectively, followed by the Welch t-test to compare their OSIVQ scores with the published normative values. The ANOVA comparing the CSI scores for each of the groups revealed a statistically significant difference of F(2, 312) = 3.35, p= 0.38 and post-hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score for the educators was significantly different from that of the ‘both’ group. The practitioners did not differ significantly from either the educators or ‘both’. This may in some part be explained by the fact that very often HCI is taught by an academic with a computer science background rather than an HCI specialist, but further investigation is needed in this area. The MANOVA used the three constructs of the OSIVQ as dependent variables. No significant difference was found between the groups. However, the t-tests comparing the professional against the normative data revealed that whilst there was no significant difference between the object imager score of the HCI professional and the scientist, there was a difference between the spatial imager score of the HCI professional and the visual artist, perhaps again reflecting the computer science background of many professionals. 24 survey respondents have been interviewed and the resulting data will form the basis of a thematic analysis to extend the cognitive profile, and to identify the predominant technological frames of operation. Applying this concept of technological frames to the domain of HCI, will help to make sense of the adoption and application of knowledge, tools and techniques amongst this community. In order for the curriculum to meet the needs of the market, the educator needs to understand the practitioner in order to produce graduates equipped for the role. Finally, as HCI is delivered in a multidisciplinary environment, should it not also be taught by a multidisciplinary team

The intention to use mobile digital library technology: A focus group study in the United Arab Emirates

IGI Global (“IGI”) granted Brunel University London the permission to archive this article in BURA (http://bura.brunel.ac.uk).This paper presents a qualitative study on student adoption of mobile library technology in a developing world context. The findings support the applicability of a number of existing constructs from the technology acceptance literature, such as perceived ease of use, social influence and trust. However, they also suggest the need to modify some adoption factors previously found in the literature to fit the specific context of mobile library adoption. Perceived value was found to be a more relevant overarching adoption factor than perceived usefulness for this context. Facilitating conditions were identified as important but these differed somewhat from those covered in earlier literature. The research also uncovered the importance of trialability for this type of application. The findings provide a basis for improving theory in the area of mobile library adoption and suggest a number of practical design recommendations to help designers of mobile library technology to create applications that meet user needs

Supporting Computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) in conceptual design

In order to gain a better understanding of online conceptual collaborative design processes this paper investigates how student designers make use of a shared virtual synchronous environment when engaged in conceptual design. The software enables users to talk to each other and share sketches when they are remotely located. The paper describes a novel methodology for observing and analysing collaborative design processes by adapting the concepts of grounded theory. Rather than concentrating on narrow aspects of the final artefacts, emerging “themes” are generated that provide a broader picture of collaborative design process and context descriptions. Findings on the themes of “grounding – mutual understanding” and “support creativity” complement findings from other research, while important themes associated with “near-synchrony” have not been emphasised in other research. From the study, a series of design recommendations are made for the development of tools to support online computer-supported collaborative work in design using a shared virtual environment

Problematising upstream technology through speculative design: the case of quantified cats and dogs

There is growing interest in technology that quantifies aspects of our lives. This paper draws on critical practice and speculative design to explore, question and problematise the ultimate consequences of such technology using the quantification of companion animals (pets) as a case study. We apply the concept of ‘moving upstream’ to study such technology and use a qualitative research approach in which both pet owners, and animal behavioural experts, were presented with, and asked to discuss, speculative designs for pet quantification applications, the design of which were extrapolated from contemporary trends. Our findings indicate a strong desire among pet owners for technology that has little scientific justification, whilst our experts caution that the use of technology to augment human-animal communication has the potential to disimprove animal welfare, undermine human-animal bonds, and create human-human conflicts. Our discussion informs wider debates regarding quantification technology

Design of Equipment Rack with TRIZ Method to Reduce Searching Time in Change Over Activity (Case Study : PT. Jans2en Indonesia)

Janssen is a manufacturing plant that works in furniture assembly. Component shortages often occurs, it will cause the increase of work in process (WIP) in assembly section. In previous studies, we analyze the root causes with FMEA and then it is resulted that router section is the constraint of the system. There are many non value added activities such as searching and transportation caused by a messy condition of work places and the devices that aren’t put in the right place. The impact is that the time allocated for every change over is higher than before. There are many components that are worked by the router section, so improvements are needed to minimize changes in over time. 5S method and the use of a new design of rack by TRIZ method are suggested for fixing the conditions of work environment. It is expected to eliminate non value added activities and changes in over time. Result shows that we can reduce non value activities in change over of regular components up to 41% and the elimination of this time is 41,6%. The non value activities in changeover of new items is 36,6% and this elimination of time is 53,3%. Key word : change over, kaizen, design, TRIZ metho

Towards a unified model of HCI and ISB for user interfaces

This study aims to identify the steps in which users of academic libraries search for information and interact with the libraries' web interfaces. The study draws on models from the disciplines of human-computer interaction (HCI) and information-seeking behaviour (ISB) to create and investigate a Unified Model. Interpretive case studies were conducted at two universities, one in the UK and one in Kuwait. Qualitative data was collected using observations with postgraduate students and analysed by a content analysis approach. The findings revealed seven steps taken in searching for information and interacting with academic libraries' web interfaces, but these steps are overlapped as users can change, move and go from one step to another based on the difficulties they encounter and the options they have

Sketch-Based Interfaces to Support Collaborative Conceptual Design Learning

In order to gain a better understanding of online collaborative conceptual design processes this paper investigates how student designers make use of Lyceum, a shared virtual synchronous environment when engaged in conceptual design. The software enables users to talk to each other and share sketches when they are remotely located. The paper describes a novel methodology for observing and analysing collaborative design processes by adapting the concepts of grounded theory. Rather than concentrating on narrow aspects of the final artefacts, emerging 'themes' are generated that provide a broader picture of collaborative design process and context descriptions. Findings on the themes of 'grounding – mutual understanding' and 'support creativity' complement findings from other research, while important themes associated with 'near-synchrony' have not been emphasised in other research. From the study, a series of design recommendations are made for the development of tools to support online computer-supported collaborative work in design using a shared virtual environment