Development and empirical testing of a game engagement scale : case r/Stopgaming

The thesis conceptualises gaming from leisurely and labour-like starting points and both measures and develops this perspective by pioneering a concept of game engagement. Putting forth this perspective is grounded by appeals to burnout in and out of professional contexts in the videogame industry, ludology and research on player experiences. These views coming together prompted a need to verify whether games are to be normatively held as engaging in only popular belief, or verifiably so in actuality. In so doing, both methodological and theoretical insight is provided. The engagement construct was adapted from the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale -9 (short form) and a survey study was conducted. Data was analysed using ordinal logistic regression and exploratory factor analysis. Results showed those not holding games dear to them may require substantial investment increases to reap adequate increases in engagement, if playtime is low, while a committed orientation towards gaming (in terms of subjective gamerhood and hours played) showed marked differences in engagement per incremental increase in playtime. These results are considered descriptive, rather than predictive. Future directions for game studies are suggested to uncover how players become disengaged and how rationalisation affects the gaming experience

Newcomers' Stress and its Effects on Well-Being during an IT Organization's Socialization Process

Previous research in other fields has shown an increasing interest in understanding newcomers’ stress and its impact on professionals’ well-being. However, we still have a limited understanding of newcomers’ stress and its emotional, behavioral, and psychological effects in the information technology organization (IT) and information system (IS) development contexts. Moreover, the newcomers’ socialization process into IT work or/ and organizations remains unexplored in the IS field. We conducted a qualitative and longitudinal case study (pre-COVID-19) that helped us understand newcomers’ stress from IS project work, and how its consequences emerge during their socialization process. We provided information in response to the call for more understanding of newcomers’ stress elements in the IT organization and IS project context. It is important to understand different stress elements and their consequences because these elements impact individuals’ attitudes, behaviors, job performance, and health among other things

Models of motivation in software engineering

Motivation in software engineering is recognized as a key success factor for software projects, but although there are many papers written about motivation in software engineering, the field lacks a comprehensive overview of the area. In particular, several models of motivation have been proposed, but they either rely heavily on one particular model (the job characteristics model), or are quite disparate and difficult to combine. Using the results from our previous systematic literature review (SLR), we constructed a new model of motivation in software engineering. We then compared this new model with existing models and refined it based on this comparison. This paper summarises the SLR results, presents the important existing models found in the literature and explains the development of our new model of motivation in software engineering

Human-centred cyber secure software engineering

Software runs our modern day lives: our shopping, our transport and our medical devices. Hence, no citizen can escape the consequences of poor software engineering. A closely-aligned concern, which also touches every aspect of our lives, is cyber security. Software has to be developed with cybersecurity threats in mind, in order to design resistance and resilience into the software, given that they are often rooted in malicious human behaviour. Both software engineering and cyber security disciplines need to acknowledge and accommodate humans, not expect perfect performances. This is a position paper, delineating the extent of the challenge posed by this reality, and suggesting ways for accommodating the influence of human nature on secure software engineering. Practical Relevance: Socio-technical systems are made up of people, processes and technology. All can fail or be suboptimal. Software itself, being designed, developed and used by humans, is likely to malfunction. This could be caused by human error, or by malice. This paper highlights this reality, taking a closer look at all of the possible sources of malfunctioning technology. By doing so, I hope to infuse the management of socio-technical systems with an understanding and acknowledgement of this reality.</p

Using Personality Detection Tools for Software Engineering Research: How Far Can We Go?

Assessing the personality of software engineers may help to match individual traits with the characteristics of development activities such as code review and testing, as well as support managers in team composition. However, self-assessment questionnaires are not a practical solution for collecting multiple observations on a large scale. Instead, automatic personality detection, while overcoming these limitations, is based on off-the-shelf solutions trained on non-technical corpora, which might not be readily applicable to technical domains like software engineering. In this paper, we first assess the performance of general-purpose personality detection tools when applied to a technical corpus of developers’ emails retrieved from the public archives of the Apache Software Foundation. We observe a general low accuracy of predictions and an overall disagreement among the tools. Second, we replicate two previous research studies in software engineering by replacing the personality detection tool used to infer developers’ personalities from pull-request discussions and emails. We observe that the original results are not confirmed, i.e., changing the tool used in the original study leads to diverging conclusions. Our results suggest a need for personality detection tools specially targeted for the software engineering domain

Performing Both Sides of the Glass: Videogame Affordances and Live Streaming on Twitch

This thesis examines the performative dimensions videogame affordances assume within online, live streaming environments. This approach considers how streamers configure their videogame play in terms of a potential audience, drawing on five semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Australian-based Twitch streamers to analyse how streamers leverage videogame affordances to produce “meaningful moments”. Guiding this thesis is the question of how the player-videogame relationship is maintained, fractured or altered within live-streaming environments such as Twitch

The Influence of Demands and Resources on Emotional Exhaustion with the Information Systems Profession

Using the Job Demands-Resources Model of Burnout as an organizing framework, this study examines multiple models of the antecedents of emotional exhaustion with the profession among IS workers via a new structural equation modeling software, WarpPLS. Data were analyzed from 293 IS professionals representing various industries across the United States. This study provides empirical evidence regarding the mediating role of the demands of the profession and the considerable influence of affective connections to the profession (i.e., career-family conflict, psychological contract violation and connection to the profession) on emotional exhaustion with the IS profession. These findings highlight the importance of understanding how complex relationships influence emotional exhaustion with the profession. Researchers interested in the causes of burnout in IS professionals may want to focus on further exploring the affective connections to the profession as they were found to be key factors directly and indirectly influencing emotional exhaustion with the profession

Relational-Cultural Experiences of Burnout by Mothers of Color in Online Counseling Programs

Burnout permeates helping professions and is a concern in counselor education and training. The defining characteristics of burnout are depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and reduced personal accomplishment. Data on burnout in diverse populations are notably limited. The primary goal of this qualitative grounded theory study was to understand the experiences of burnout in mothers of color (MoCs) who were enrolled in or recently (within the last 5 years) graduated from an online Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Education Programs accredited clinical mental health counseling (CMHC) program. Another goal of this study was to investigate how MoCs managed burnout. Participants were recruited via the use of social media, a listserv, and a university research participant pool. Purposeful criterion sampling aided in finding participants who self-identified as MoCs and self-reported having experienced burnout within their academic programs. Participants completed demographic surveys to identify diversity within the sample. Interview data were collected via phone. A constant comparative analysis was conducted using a relational cultural theoretical lens. This investigation illuminated (a) self-reported experiences of burnout by MoCs completing master\u27s degrees online in CMHC, (b) how these MoCs reported managing experiences of burnout, (c) the development of a theory using the data obtained from MoCs descriptions of burnout, and (d) information that contributed to the literature exploring burnout in diverse populations. The implications this study may have for social change include the potential to identify areas where multicultural sensitivity is needed in program development and interventions to proactively help combat burnout in student MoCs

Psycho-Technological Compatibility as One of the Guidelines for Students of Computer Science

Employing computer technology in different learning situations leads to the rapid absorption of various scientific concepts, and contributes to providing learners with many facts and knowledge in succession. However, the use of these technologies needs human groups capable of dealing with technological software and effectively employing them. It is clear from the foregoing that the use of computer technology is related to the personal characteristics of the individual, and in light of the interest of some of the literature in identifying the most important characteristics of personality and its dimensions and its various effects on the processes of using computer technology, and the interest of other studies in the possibility of identifying personality characteristics and judging them through the digital performance of computer users. The current study aimed to identify the degree of achieving psycho-technological compatibility between both personality traits and technological skills through the application of the five factors of the personality scale and the technological competency test on a sample of preparatory year students at King Faisal University. The descriptive, correlative, and comparative approach was used. Two tools were developed, a scale for personal traits and a test for basic competencies for using computer technologies. The results revealed that there is a statistically significant correlation between the personality traits and their dimensions, and the students’ technological skills. Further, there was an effect of extraversion, openness to experience, acceptability, and conscientiousness on the total scores of technological skills. In addition, it is possible to predict some of the personality traits with the technological skills common to students, and there is a large degree of compatibility and compatibility between the personality traits and the technological skills of the individual