Stage Predicting Student Stay Time Length on Webpages of Online Courses Based on Grey Models

The paper, entitled “Stage Predicting Student Stay Time Length on Webpages of Online Courses Based on Grey Models”, has been presented at the main conference. By predicting student’s stay time length, an e-learning system has potential to dynamically tailor the learning content to the students. A literature review has been conducted on power law of learning and knowledge components. Accordingly, an initial prediction method is proposed based on two learning curve modes and grey models. Based on the experimental result of this initial prediction method, the construction method of grey models has been modified. The results produced by the grey models based on the two construction methods are then compared and analyzed. The results show that prediction of stay time length is possible to a certain degree while the students learn on web pages. Both presentations were received very well and leaded to many questions after the presentation, further discussions during the conference, and two potential collaborations with international research groups.To provide adaptive learning, an e-learning system needs to gather information about what student state is while the student learns online course. A student state index is the length of time the student stays on a webpage of online course. By predicting student’s stay time length, the e-learning system has potential to dynamically tailor the learning content to the students. A literature review is conducted on power law of learning and knowledge component. We assume that online course consists of knowledge components. A knowledge component crosses several successive web pages. Accordingly, an initial prediction method is proposed based on the two learning curve modes and the grey models. Based on the experimental result of this initial prediction method, construction method of grey models is modified. The results produced by the grey models based on the two construction methods are then compared and analyzed. The results show that prediction of stay time length is possible to certain degree while the students learn knowledge on web pages

Investigating website usability and behavioural intention for online hotel reservations: a cognitive perspective

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The problem area identified for this research is to define the cognitive factors and Customers’ Critical Information Requirements (CCIRs) that affect the customer decision making process when they book their hotel reservations online. The purpose of this study is to define the CCIRs and the (re)design specifications of the website which will be noticed by the users through to completing the booking, without losing them during the decision making process. A combination of various cognitive analysis and eyetracking techniques were applied in order to understand in real time the customer’s decision making process during their online hotel booking process. This includes methods that identify user’s online previous and present experiences, methods that assess and result in the specification of usability and (re)design guidelines. Techniques for eliciting CCIRs in real time are facilitated through the simultaneous usage of eye tracking technology, think aloud expression and video recording. Finally, a validation study was conducted in order to confirm the research findings. A key outcome of this research is a novel, robust and precision approach that (i) combines cognitive task analysis, eye tracking techniques, statistical and clustering methods in order to facilitate the precise identification of both explicit and tacit CCIRs; (ii) for the first time provides a time frame analysis of CCIRs across each stage of the customer’s decision making process and identifies the concomitant decision points where the customer is most likely to abandon the web site; (iii) elicits the mental model of the customer together with the CCIRs and uses this knowledge as the basis for generating the re-design specification for the website; and, (iv) evaluates whether there is a significant improvement in the usability and cognitive utility of the redesigned website that is of practical value to hotels. A further theoretical contribution is the “CCIRs informed decision making process model” for the (re)design of hotel websites as a result of applying our novel and innovative approach. Moreover, I have demonstrated for the first time how our approach can be applied to theory building of CCIRs-based cognitive task models that explicitly define the customer’s decision making process. The above mentioned methodology and theoretical outputs of this research are generally applicable to other industry sectors beyond the hotel industry. For example, financial trading decision support systems, air traffic control displays, mobile phone apps, i.e. to name a few from the myriad of possible applications

Role of images on World Wide Web readability

As the Internet and World Wide Web have grown, many good things have come. If you have access to a computer, you can find a lot of information quickly and easily. Electronic devices can store and retrieve vast amounts of data in seconds. You no longer have to leave your house to get products and services you could only get in person. Documents can be changed from English to Urdu or from text to speech almost instantly, making it easy for people from different cultures and with different abilities to talk to each other. As technology improves, web developers and website visitors want more animation, colour, and technology. As computers get faster at processing images and other graphics, web developers use them more and more. Users who can see colour, pictures, animation, and images can help understand and read the Web and improve the Web experience. People who have trouble reading or whose first language is not used on the website can also benefit from using pictures. But not all images help people understand and read the text they go with. For example, images just for decoration or picked by the people who made the website should not be used. Also, different factors could affect how easy it is to read graphical content, such as a low image resolution, a bad aspect ratio, a bad colour combination in the image itself, a small font size, etc., and the WCAG gave different rules for each of these problems. The rules suggest using alternative text, the right combination of colours, low contrast, and a higher resolution. But one of the biggest problems is that images that don't go with the text on a web page can make it hard to read the text. On the other hand, relevant pictures could make the page easier to read. A method has been suggested to figure out how relevant the images on websites are from the point of view of web readability. This method combines different ways to get information from images by using Cloud Vision API and Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and reading text from websites to find relevancy between them. Techniques for preprocessing data have been used on the information that has been extracted. Natural Language Processing (NLP) technique has been used to determine what images and text on a web page have to do with each other. This tool looks at fifty educational websites' pictures and assesses their relevance. Results show that images that have nothing to do with the page's content and images that aren't very good cause lower relevancy scores. A user study was done to evaluate the hypothesis that the relevant images could enhance web readability based on two evaluations: the evaluation of the 1024 end users of the page and the heuristic evaluation, which was done by 32 experts in accessibility. The user study was done with questions about what the user knows, how they feel, and what they can do. The results back up the idea that images that are relevant to the page make it easier to read. This method will help web designers make pages easier to read by looking at only the essential parts of a page and not relying on their judgment.Programa de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Informática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: José Luis Lépez Cuadrado.- Secretario: Divakar Yadav.- Vocal: Arti Jai

Scalable Bayesian modeling, monitoring and analysis of dynamic network flow data

Traffic flow count data in networks arise in many applications, such as automobile or aviation transportation, certain directed social network contexts, and Internet studies. Using an example of Internet browser traffic flow through site-segments of an international news website, we present Bayesian analyses of two linked classes of models which, in tandem, allow fast, scalable and interpretable Bayesian inference. We first develop flexible state-space models for streaming count data, able to adaptively characterize and quantify network dynamics efficiently in real-time. We then use these models as emulators of more structured, time-varying gravity models that allow formal dissection of network dynamics. This yields interpretable inferences on traffic flow characteristics, and on dynamics in interactions among network nodes. Bayesian monitoring theory defines a strategy for sequential model assessment and adaptation in cases when network flow data deviates from model-based predictions. Exploratory and sequential monitoring analyses of evolving traffic on a network of web site-segments in e-commerce demonstrate the utility of this coupled Bayesian emulation approach to analysis of streaming network count data.Comment: 29 pages, 16 figure

Mate Choice Patterns in Social and Non-Social Decision-Making Domains

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the Cognitive Science Program, 2019Humans are a fundamentally social species, and an individual may have social ties of many flavors. One social domain, mate or romantic partner choice, has been thoroughly examined, but others remain relatively understudied. How do our choice patterns vary between different social domains? In this work, I argue that although choice constraints vary between social domains (e.g. a collaborator, spouse, friend, mentor, or dodgeball teammate), the fundamental patterns of choice are ultimately similar. In this dissertation, I present studies of three different choice areas. First, I compare the search for non-social resources such as food (i.e. Optimal Foraging Theory; OFT) with that for a romantic partner to produce a theory-driven framework for mate choice as a foraging problem. Mate foragers demonstrated sensitivity to search costs as predicted by OFT, where those searching longest for their first marriage (but not cohabitations) had a decreased risk of relationship dissolution. However, periods of relationships and search also covaried in ways unexpected by OFT. Next, I tested for the presence of two common patterns in romantic partner choice: positive assortment (e.g. homophily) and the stated-revealed preference gap (inconsistency between one’s stated preferences and the actual traits of a chosen partner). I demonstrated these patterns in two social domains: academic collaborator choice and companion animal choice. I tested whether homophily was the best predictor of academic collaborations forming. I held three academic speed-networking events, a modified form of speed-dating. Pairs were assigned experimentally based on the similarity of academics’ current research and complementarity of desired vs current knowledge. These manipulations did not significantly impact collaboration rates; rather, believing a partner’s research was similar was predictive of collaboration, suggesting homophily has a nuanced role in collaboration formation. I then examined dog choice in animal shelters. Comparing the traits of a newly adopted dog to the stated preferences of their adopter, adopters perceived their dog to fulfill their stated preferences at above-chance rates. These adopter-dog pairs also exhibited weak positive assortment of personality. I summarize the implications of exapting choice mechanisms which are appropriate for one adaptive domain to novel social domains with different choice constraints

Finding Myself: The Maturation of Spirituality and its Influence on Behavior During Late Adolescence

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to develop a theoretical model describing the influence of spirituality and/or religiosity on late adolescent behavior. Multiple quantitative research studies have linked spirituality and/or religiosity with both decreased health-risk behaviors and increased health-promotion behaviors during adolescence. However, as reductionist methods have not revealed underlying reasons for these relationships, the ability to apply this knowledge to practice is limited. Additionally, there is a lack of clear definitions for spirituality and/or religiosity firm enough to bridge disciplinary boundaries. A qualitative research perspective, which takes into account the embodied experience and development of individuals during late adolescence, is needed to discover meaning, beliefs, and practices that can inform why the relationships between spirituality and/or religiosity and health-risk and health-promotion behaviors exist. Research questions were structured to discover both the maturation of spirituality during late adolescence as well as the areas of influence spirituality and/or religiosity had on behavior during late adolescence. Blumer\u27s Symbolic Interactionism and embodiment were the conceptual lenses informing the study. Twenty-one adolescents, age 16–21 years, from two international educational institutions in central Spain and one non-profit after-school program in the United States for high-risk adolescents were interviewed electronically by email. A grounded theory research design was used to analyze the data. From this analysis, a theoretical model emerged with a core concept of finding myself that represents four core process concepts with in vivo titles: (a) humans need a guide, (b) what drives me, (c) I have resources, and (d) sensing this human spark and effects on my development. Implications of this study are threefold: (a) the use of electronic recruitment and email interviewing of late adolescent populations is an effective method to increase access to the population under study and reduce power differentials during the research process; (b) late adolescents are aware of their personal spiritual maturation as well as its influence on health; therefore the continued exploration of this phenomenon regarding adolescent health is warranted; and (c) the use of an embodied perspective when investigating adolescent health can illuminate information previously concealed by reductionist research methods

Is text messaging a viable way to support parents? A systematic review, pilot study, and correlation study examining the feasibility, utility, and barriers to a parenting text messaging intervention

Many high school students, especially those from a low socioeconomic background, struggle with poor academic outcomes and school disengagement (Hopson & Lee, 2011; Lamb et al., 2015). Therefore, an easily accessible and affordable intervention would be useful to enhance teenagers’ academic performance and engagement. One way to enhance academic outcomes is through parenting, as parenting and parental involvement in teenagers’ education are associated with better students' academic performance (Boonk et al., 2018; Cheung & Pomerantz, 2012; Froiland et al., 2013; Hill & Tyson, 2009; Vasquez et al., 2016). To allow the intervention to be easily accessible with minimal cost for parents, I looked into delivering the intervention through text messages hosted by a smartphone application, as most families own a smartphone, and have internet access (e.g., Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018). A systematic review was conducted to gain insight from studies which had previously utilised parenting text messages to improve students’ academic outcomes and engagement. The review suggested that text messaging interventions could feasibly deliver parenting interventions. Some studies showed that text messaging parenting interventions were effective in enhancing teenagers’ academic achievement and/or engagement. However, the effect sizes tended to be very small, and findings were not consistent across studies. Therefore, the present thesis proceeded with using text messages as an intervention-delivery medium to further investigate the effect of a text messaging parenting program. A text messaging intervention for parents was developed to improve their parenting practices and thereby enhance their high school teenagers’ academic achievement and engagement. To ensure the effectiveness of the program, I used the evidence-based Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) as the foundation of my intervention (Sanders & Mazzucchelli, 2018b). A pilot study was conducted to understand high school parents’ preferences on the intervention logistics and text message content. Results suggested that parents would like to receive parenting text messages once a day between 9:00 a.m. and 9:59 a.m., and at most five times per week, during weekdays. The Triple P messages were also well-received by parents (the average usefulness rating ranged from 3.80 to 4.35 out of 5, 5 being extremely useful, 1 being not at all useful). In addition, parents’ socioeconomic status was only somewhat associated with the perceived usefulness of the messages. This led to the next study which involved launching the Triple P text messaging intervention to high school parents. However, due to the impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, recruitment became difficult, and therefore, the intervention study was redesigned to provide sufficient power for effect detection. Specifically, the study investigated the extent to which Triple P messages could add value to Triple P Online. Despite advertising the free parenting program to thousands of parents, the recruitment rate was low, resulting in an insufficient sample size to perform meaningful statistical analyses. Nevertheless, parents in the study found Triple P messages to be generally useful (average usefulness rating ranged from 3.10 to 4.29 out of 5, with 5 being very useful, 1 being not at all useful). The low recruitment rate of the Triple P messaging and Triple P Online intervention was surprising given the substantial adverting and the fact that Triple P Online was a well-established parenting program (Ralph & Sanders, 2013). Therefore, I conducted a follow-up study to investigate the barriers high school parents might face that hinder their participation in parenting programs, especially in online and text messaging parenting programs. The results revealed some factors (e.g., parenting style and parents' attitude in being involved in their teenagers’ education) that were associated with parents’ willingness to seek parental help from various sources (including from online resources), as well as parents’ intention to participate in online and/or text message parenting interventions. Factors such as parental self-efficacy, parenting style, and parents' attitude in being involved in their teenagers’ education also predicted whether parents found parenting help useful. Moreover, the study found evidence of parental help negation - parents who might benefit from help (e.g., parents with less positive parenting practices) were less likely to seek it. These results provided potential explanations for the low recruitment rate of the Triple P messaging and online study. Future studies should address these barriers and thereby better encourage parents to seek parenting help

Expectations eclipsed in foreign language education: learners and educators on an ongoing journey / edited by Hülya Görür-Atabaş, Sharon Turner.

Between June 2-4, 2011 Sabancı University School of Languages welcomed colleagues from 21 different countries to a collaborative exploration of the challenging and inspiring journey of learners and educators in the field of language education.\ud \ud The conference provided an opportunity for all stakeholders to share their views on language education. Colleagues met with world-renowned experts and authors in the fields of education and psychology, faculty and administrators from various universities and institutions, teachers from secondary educational backgrounds and higher education, as well as learners whose voices are often not directly shared but usually reported.\ud \ud The conference name, Eclipsing Expectations, was inspired by two natural phenomena, a solar eclipse directly before the conference, and a lunar eclipse, immediately after. Learners and educators were hereby invited to join a journey to observe, learn and exchange ideas in orde