Uses and Gratifications of Initiating Use of Gamifed Learning Platforms

Research on gamified educational platforms has chiefly focused on game elements motivating continued engagement, neglecting whether and why people choose to use them in the first place. Grounded in Uses & Gratifications Theory, this study therefore combined use diaries with follow-up interviews to explore the situated reasons for use of 83 students who voluntarily used a gamified online learning platform. Partial data analysis suggested a motivational threshold of gamification: game design elements don’t motivate the initiation of new use sessions per se, but are able to prolong an already started session. Some other pre- existing sought uses and gratifications are required for gamification to work, although gamification may indirectly support these. Main reasons for initiating use of a gamified learning platform were learning, curiosity, fun, need for closure, and competence

Studying the Impact of Gamification on Motivation in Remote Programming Education

With the increasing hybrid blend of face-to-face and remote study in the higher education, finding strategies to keep students motivated when working from home is pertinent. This paper describes gamification in online learning environments, from the viewpoint of individuals undertaking programming education. In this empirical study, both qualitative and quantitative research methods are employed to investigate the hypothesis that gamified motivational methods would increase students’ motivation when learning programming remotely at a higher education level. This hypothesis was formed following an observed motivational drop regarding studies during the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with an observed consistency of engagement in the video games industry. An initial questionnaire with 90 respondents from multiple backgrounds explores game design elements as a concept and investigates the current or historical motivation of individuals working from home. Conclusions were drawn that participants’ motivation working from home were mixed, and that formative feedback and game design elements were perceived to be motivating to a learner, and these results were used to inform the design of two learner-centred virtual learning environments. These virtual learning environments were designed to facilitate programming tasks online in two settings: one being a traditional academic setting with staged communication with a virtual tutor, and the second being a gamified setting, completing missions and gaining rewards in line with a storyline. These programming environments were then used in a practical, yet remote, experiment with 25 participants who were current university students, graduates or recent education-leavers. These experiments gained statistically significant results, showing that the gamified system and specific gamified elements were found to be considerably motivating to the learner. This work therefore makes the following contribution: that gamified elements such as badges, rewards and missions do increase students’ motivation when engaging with virtual learning environments for programming. This work is relevant for programming and Computing educators, digital education researchers and gamification researchers

Measures of Privacy Protection on Social Environments

Tesis por compendio[EN] Nowadays, online social networks (OSNs) have become a mainstream cultural phenomenon for millions of Internet users. Social networks are an ideal environment for generating all kinds of social benefits for users. Users share experiences, keep in touch with their family, friends and acquaintances, and earn economic benefits from the power of their influence (which is translated into new job opportunities). However, the use of social networks and the action of sharing information imply the loss of the users’ privacy. Recently, a great interest in protecting the privacy of users has emerged. This situation has been due to documented cases of regrets in users’ actions, company scandals produced by misuse of personal information, and the biases introduced by privacy mechanisms. Social network providers have included improvements in their systems to reduce users’ privacy risks; for example, restricting privacy policies by default, adding new privacy settings, and designing quick and easy shortcuts to configure user privacy settings. In the privacy researcher area, new advances are proposed to improve privacy mechanisms, most of them focused on automation, fine-grained systems, and the usage of features extracted from the user’s profile information and interactions to recommend the best privacy policy for the user. Despite these advances, many studies have shown that users’ concern for privacy does not match the decisions they ultimately make in social networks. This misalignment in the users’ behavior might be due to the complexity of the privacy concept itself. This drawback causes users to disregard privacy risks, or perceive them as temporarily distant. Another cause of users’ behavior misalignment might be due to the complexity of the privacy decision-making process. This is because users should consider all possible scenarios and the factors involved (e.g., the number of friends, the relationship type, the context of the information, etc.) to make an appropriate privacy decision. The main contributions of this thesis are the development of metrics to assess privacy risks, and the proposal of explainable privacy mechanisms (using the developed metrics) to assist and raise awareness among users during the privacy decision process. Based on the definition of the concept of privacy, the dimensions of information scope and information sensitivity have been considered in this thesis to assess privacy risks. For explainable privacy mechanisms, soft paternalism techniques and gamification elements that make use of the proposed metrics have been designed. These mechanisms have been integrated into the social network PESEDIA and evaluated in experiments with real users. PESEDIA is a social network developed in the framework of the Master’s thesis of the Ph.D. student [15], this thesis, and the national projects “Privacy in Social Educational Environments during Childhood and Adolescence” (TIN2014-55206- R) and “Intelligent Agents for Privacy Advice in Social Networks” (TIN2017-89156-R). The findings confirm the validity of the proposed metrics for computing the users’ scope and the sensitivity of social network publications. For the scope metric, the results also showed the possibility of estimating it through local and social centrality metrics for scenarios with limited information access. For the sensitivity metric, the results also remarked the users’ misalignment for some information types and the consensus for a majority of them. The usage of these metrics as part of messages about potential consequences of privacy policy choices and information sharing actions to users showed positive effects on users’ behavior regarding privacy. Furthermore, the findings of exploring the users’ trade-off between costs and benefits during disclosure actions of personal information showed significant relationships with the usual social circles (family members, friends, coworkers, and unknown users) and their properties. This allowed designing better privacy mechanisms that appropriately restrict access to information and reduce regrets. Finally, gamification elements applied to social networks and users’ privacy showed a positive effect on the users’ behavior towards privacy and safe practices in social networks.[ES] En la actualidad, las redes sociales se han convertido en un fenómeno cultural dominante para millones de usuarios de Internet. Las redes sociales son un entorno ideal para la generación de todo tipo de beneficios sociales para los usuarios. Los usuarios comparten experiencias, mantienen el contacto con sus familiares, amigos y conocidos, y obtienen beneficios económicos gracias al poder de su influencia (lo que se traduce en nuevas oportunidades de trabajo). Sin embargo, el uso de las redes sociales y la acción de compartir información implica la perdida de la privacidad de los usuarios. Recientemente ha emergido un gran interés en proteger la privacidad de los usuarios. Esta situación se ha debido a los casos de arrepentimientos documentados en las acciones de los usuarios, escándalos empresariales producidos por usos indebidos de la información personal, y a los sesgos que introducen los mecanismos de privacidad. Los proveedores de redes sociales han incluido mejoras en sus sistemas para reducir los riesgos en privacidad de los usuarios; por ejemplo, restringiendo las políticas de privacidad por defecto, añadiendo nuevos elementos de configuración de la privacidad, y diseñando accesos fáciles y directos para configurar la privacidad de los usuarios. En el campo de la investigación de la privacidad, nuevos avances se proponen para mejorar los mecanismos de privacidad la mayoría centrados en la automatización, selección de grano fino, y uso de características extraídas de la información y sus interacciones para recomendar la mejor política de privacidad para el usuario. A pesar de estos avances, muchos estudios han demostrado que la preocupación de los usuarios por la privacidad no se corresponde con las decisiones que finalmente toman en las redes sociales. Este desajuste en el comportamiento de los usuarios podría deberse a la complejidad del propio concepto de privacidad. Este inconveniente hace que los usuarios ignoren los riesgos de privacidad, o los perciban como temporalmente distantes. Otra causa del desajuste en el comportamiento de los usuarios podría deberse a la complejidad del proceso de toma de decisiones sobre la privacidad. Esto se debe a que los usuarios deben considerar todos los escenarios posibles y los factores involucrados (por ejemplo, el número de amigos, el tipo de relación, el contexto de la información, etc.) para tomar una decisión apropiada sobre la privacidad. Las principales contribuciones de esta tesis son el desarrollo de métricas para evaluar los riesgos de privacidad, y la propuesta de mecanismos de privacidad explicables (haciendo uso de las métricas desarrolladas) para asistir y concienciar a los usuarios durante el proceso de decisión sobre la privacidad. Atendiendo a la definición del concepto de la privacidad, las dimensiones del alcance de la información y la sensibilidad de la información se han considerado en esta tesis para evaluar los riesgos de privacidad. En cuanto a los mecanismos de privacidad explicables, se han diseñado utilizando técnicas de paternalismo blando y elementos de gamificación que hacen uso de las métricas propuestas. Estos mecanismos se han integrado en la red social PESEDIA y evaluado en experimentos con usuarios reales. PESEDIA es una red social desarrollada en el marco de la tesina de Master del doctorando [15], esta tesis y los proyectos nacionales “Privacidad en Entornos Sociales Educativos durante la Infancia y la Adolescencia” (TIN2014-55206-R) y “Agentes inteligentes para asesorar en privacidad en redes sociales” (TIN2017-89156-R). Los resultados confirman la validez de las métricas propuestas para calcular el alcance de los usuarios y la sensibilidad de las publicaciones de las redes sociales. En cuanto a la métrica del alcance, los resultados también mostraron la posibilidad de estimarla mediante métricas de centralidad local y social para escenarios con acceso limitado a la información. En cuanto a la métrica de sensibilidad, los resultados también pusieron de manifiesto la falta de concordancia de los usuarios en el caso de algunos tipos de información y el consenso en el caso de la mayoría de ellos. El uso de estas métricas como parte de los mensajes sobre las posibles consecuencias de las opciones de política de privacidad y las acciones de intercambio de información a los usuarios mostró efectos positivos en el comportamiento de los usuarios con respecto a la privacidad. Además, los resultados de la exploración de la compensación de los usuarios entre los costos y los beneficios durante las acciones de divulgación de información personal mostraron relaciones significativas con los círculos sociales habituales (familiares, amigos, compañeros de trabajo y usuarios desconocidos) y sus propiedades. Esto permitió diseñar mejores mecanismos de privacidad que restringen adecuadamente el acceso a la información y reducen los arrepentimientos. Por último, los elementos de gamificación aplicados a las redes sociales y a la privacidad de los usuarios mostraron un efecto positivo en el comportamiento de los usuarios hacia la privacidad y las prácticas seguras en las redes sociales.[CA] En l’actualitat, les xarxes socials s’han convertit en un fenomen cultural dominant per a milions d’usuaris d’Internet. Les xarxes socials són un entorn ideal per a la generació de tota mena de beneficis socials per als usuaris. Els usuaris comparteixen experiències, mantenen el contacte amb els seus familiars, amics i coneguts, i obtenen beneficis econòmics gràcies al poder de la seva influència (el que es tradueix en noves oportunitats de treball). No obstant això, l’ús de les xarxes socials i l’acció de compartir informació implica la perduda de la privacitat dels usuaris. Recentment ha emergit un gran interès per protegir la privacitat dels usuaris. Aquesta situació s’ha degut als casos de penediments documentats en les accions dels usuaris, escàndols empresarials produïts per usos indeguts de la informació personal, i als caires que introdueixen els mecanismes de privacitat. Els proveïdors de xarxes socials han inclòs millores en els seus sistemes per a reduir els riscos en privacitat dels usuaris; per exemple, restringint les polítiques de privacitat per defecte, afegint nous elements de configuració de la privacitat, i dissenyant accessos fàcils i directes per a configurar la privacitat dels usuaris. En el camp de la recerca de la privacitat, nous avanços es proposen per a millorar els mecanismes de privacitat la majoria centrats en l’automatització, selecció de gra fi, i ús de característiques extretes de la informació i les seues interaccions per a recomanar la millor política de privacitat per a l’usuari. Malgrat aquests avanços, molts estudis han demostrat que la preocupació dels usuaris per la privacitat no es correspon amb les decisions que finalment prenen en les xarxes socials. Aquesta desalineació en el comportament dels usuaris podria deure’s a la complexitat del propi concepte de privacitat. Aquest inconvenient fa que els usuaris ignorin els riscos de privacitat, o els percebin com temporalment distants. Una altra causa de la desalineació en el comportament dels usuaris podria deure’s a la complexitat del procés de presa de decisions sobre la privacitat. Això es deu al fet que els usuaris han de considerar tots els escenaris possibles i els factors involucrats (per exemple, el nombre d’amics, el tipus de relació, el context de la informació, etc.) per a prendre una decisió apropiada sobre la privacitat. Les principals contribucions d’aquesta tesi són el desenvolupament de mètriques per a avaluar els riscos de privacitat, i la proposta de mecanismes de privacitat explicables (fent ús de les mètriques desenvolupades) per a assistir i conscienciar als usuaris durant el procés de decisió sobre la privacitat. Atesa la definició del concepte de la privacitat, les dimensions de l’abast de la informació i la sensibilitat de la informació s’han considerat en aquesta tesi per a avaluar els riscos de privacitat. Respecte als mecanismes de privacitat explicables, aquests s’han dissenyat utilitzant tècniques de paternalisme bla i elements de gamificació que fan ús de les mètriques propostes. Aquests mecanismes s’han integrat en la xarxa social PESEDIA i avaluat en experiments amb usuaris reals. PESEDIA és una xarxa social desenvolupada en el marc de la tesina de Màster del doctorant [15], aquesta tesi i els projectes nacionals “Privacitat en Entorns Socials Educatius durant la Infància i l’Adolescència” (TIN2014-55206-R) i “Agents Intel·ligents per a assessorar en Privacitat en xarxes socials” (TIN2017-89156-R). Els resultats confirmen la validesa de les mètriques propostes per a calcular l’abast de les accions dels usuaris i la sensibilitat de les publicacions de les xarxes socials. Respecte a la mètrica de l’abast, els resultats també van mostrar la possibilitat d’estimarla mitjançant mètriques de centralitat local i social per a escenaris amb accés limitat a la informació. Respecte a la mètrica de sensibilitat, els resultats també van posar de manifest la falta de concordança dels usuaris en el cas d’alguns tipus d’informació i el consens en el cas de la majoria d’ells. L’ús d’aquestes mètriques com a part dels missatges sobre les possibles conseqüències de les opcions de política de privacitat i les accions d’intercanvi d’informació als usuaris va mostrar efectes positius en el comportament dels usuaris respecte a la privacitat. A més, els resultats de l’exploració de la compensació dels usuaris entre els costos i els beneficis durant les accions de divulgació d’informació personal van mostrar relacions significatives amb els cercles socials habituals (familiars, amics, companys de treball i usuaris desconeguts) i les seves propietats. Això ha permés dissenyar millors mecanismes de privacitat que restringeixen adequadament l’accés a la informació i redueixen els penediments. Finalment, els elements de gamificació aplicats a les xarxes socials i a la privacitat dels usuaris van mostrar un efecte positiu en el comportament dels usuaris cap a la privacitat i les pràctiques segures en les xarxes socials.Alemany Bordera, J. (2020). Measures of Privacy Protection on Social Environments [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/151456TESISCompendi

An examination of the psychometric properties of the Gameful Experience Questionnaire (GAMEFULQUEST) in an online training environment

Thesis (MCom)--Stellenbosch University, 2022.ENGLISH SUMMARY: The South African corporate environment has experienced a significant digital, social, and economic upheaval provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic. Organizations have transformed and digitalized their practices and procedures overnight and adapted their skills and knowledge to function remotely. Some businesses have adapted the training and development of their staff and sought new approaches such as gamified learning technologies to create a more fun, inclusive, and meaningful experience. Measures are required to assess the gameful experience of employees to continuously enable a rich gamified training experience. The GAMEFULQUEST instrument by Högberg et al. (2019) originally designed to measure the gameful experience in a service environment, is recommended. In this study the instrument was subjected to a validation procedure to test its psychometric properties with a view of determining its suitability for a corporate training environment when administered to a South African sample. For this study the research design followed a quantitative research analysis, and a cross-sectional research design was used. The respondents were sourced from a diversified sample group located within SPAR retail company and distributed to these employees nation-wide, utilizing a non-probability convenience sampling. The validation procedure included an examination of construct validity, reliability (i.e. alpha and omega), convergent validity, discriminant validity and predictive validity. Structural Equation Modelling, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and reliability techniques were applied to the GAMEFULQUEST measure in order to test the validities of the measure. The statistical analyses of the instrument found support for validity and reliability of the measure in the chosen sample. In addition, evidence of a predictive relationship between gameful experience and self-directed learning was found. The GAMEFULQUEST instrument can potentially be utilized as a feedback measure. This is achieved through identifying dimensions of a gameful experience that are deemed ineffective in gamified training platforms, which would be subject improvement to ensure a quality learning experience. Additionally, the measure can assist HR practitioners to improve an organization’s online training environment, by further creating a competitive advantage amongst industries that adopt gamification as a design strategy. Lastly, the study contributes to current literature by providing evidence of the validity and reliability of the GAMEFULQUEST measure in a South African sample.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In Suid-Afrika het die korporatiewe omgewing aansienlike digitale, maatskaplike en ekonomiese omwenteling ervaar as gevolg van die Covid-19 pandemie. Organisasies het oornag hulle digitale praktyke en prosedures getransformeer en hulle vaardighede en kennis aangepas om virtueel en oor afstand te funksioneer. Sommige besighede het personeelopleiding en ontwikkeling sodanig aangepas en nuwe benaderings, soos onder andere, speletjie georienteerde ‘gamified1’ leer/studie tegnologie aangewend vir groter ontspanning en betekenisvolle ervarings. Om deurgaans bevredigende ‘gamified’ opleiding te verseker, word metingsinstrumente vir assessering benodig. Die GAMEFULQUEST instrument wat deur Hőgberg et al. (2019) oorspronklik ontwerp is om die ‘gameful’ ervaring in die werk omgewing te meet, word aanbeveel. In die studie was die instrument aan ‘n valideringsprosedure onderwerp om die psigometriese eienskappe te toets met die oog op bepaling van die toets se bruikbaarheid vir ‘n korporatiewe opeleidingsomgewing wanneer dit aangewend word in ‘n Suid-Afrikaanse steekproef. Vir die doeleindes van hierdie studie, was beide kwantitatiewe navorsingsontleding en dwarssnit navorsingsontwerp gebruik. Die respondente was gewerf uit ‘n gediversifiseerde personeelgroep van SPAR as kleinhandel maatskappy en nasionaal versprei, en ‘n nie-waarskynlikheid gerieflikheidsteekproefneming was gebruik. Die validerings prosedure het bestaan uit toetsing van konstruk geldigheid, betroubare alfa en omega, konvergente, asook diskriminerende en voorspellende geldigheid. Om geldigheid van die meetinstrument verder te toets, was strukturele vergelykingsmodellering, bevestigende faktoranalise en tegnieke om betroubaarheid te evalueer. Statistiese analise het die geldigheid en betroubaarheid van die meetinstrument tydens die gekose steekproefneming bevestig. Daarbenewens was gevind dat ‘n voorspellingsgeldigheid bestaan tussen die ‘gameful’ ervaring en selfgerigte-leer/studies. Die GAMEFULQUEST meetinstrument beskik oor die potensiaal om as terugvoer-instrument aangewend te word. Dit word bereik deur die identifisering van dimensies van ‘gameful2’ ervaring en oneffektiewe en onderontwikkelde ‘speletjie elemente in ‘gamified’ opleidingsplatforms wat verbetering benodig om leerervarings te verseker. Bykomend kan die meetinstrument Menslike Hulpbronpraktisyns help om virtuele (aanlyn) opeleidingsomgewings te bevorder en sodoende kompeterende voordeel tussen maatskappye te skep wat ‘gamification’ as ontwerpstrategie aanvaar. Laastens het die studie bygedra to die huidige literatuur deurdat bevestiging voorsien word ten opsigte van die geldigheid en betroubaarheid van die GAMEFULQUEST meetinstrument in ‘n Suid-Afrikaanse steekproefneming.Master

Examining intimate infrastructures : identity work and a sense of community within Grindr

Spaces for queer-identifying people have traditionally existed in secretive or underground locations, however, the digital age has led to more visible digital spaces which queer men may seek out for social practices. The existence of digital-physical spaces such as Grindr, where the app can function entirely within digital space but may extend to the physical through meet-ups and GPS data, allows queer men to use this space to engage with identity work. Grindr also provides a space for seeking a sense of community without users having to physically locate themselves within queer-designated spaces. In this thesis, I examine how queer men may navigate Grindr’s design and affordances through its intimate infrastructure to engage with identity work and seek a sense of community. Building on the work of Light, Burgess, and Duguay (2018), this project qualitatively examines Grindr using an expanded app walkthrough methodology, comprised of digital ethnography and semi-structured interviews with seven Australian Grindr users who volunteered for this study. My findings are presented in a temporal structure which reflects how a user may experience each part of Grindr’s intimate infrastructure over the course of their app usage. Through this research I found that Grindr was being used for trialling and exploring queer identities and intimacies within a space perceived as safe through its affordances for anonymity, and its location as a visible queer space. Additionally, I found that Grindr’s location as visible within mainstream society was providing an important access point, or gateway, to broader queer communities by affording a safe space for users to seek a sense of community. This research contributes to broader understandings of how digital spaces may be used to engage with identity work and seek a sense of community in an increasingly digital world

An investigation into generation Z’s mindsets of entertainment in an autonomous vehicle

Alongside the development of digital life, certain concepts gain new dimensions among new generations. When entertainment is the subject, it creates emergent desires, behaviours and mindsets in the social and consumer cultures. However, existing perspectives around in-car entertainment do not fully embrace the digitally dynamic environment in which Generation Z is heavily involved. This paper uses the future autonomous vehicle’s interior context as a case study to understand Gen Z’s meaning change around in-car entertainment. It draws on a qualitative research methodology by combining semi-structured interviews with design metaphor activities to understand Gen Z’s altered mindset with the impact of digital technology. As ultimate findings, eight different in- car entertainment mindsets of Gen Z emerged: Effortlessness Seeking, Sense of Belonging, Balance Seeking, Authenticity Seeking, Advocating, Decision-Making, Creating and Interacting. The implications of an autonomous vehicle’s entertainment experience were discussed. It is expected that this study will contribute to understanding the shifting mindset and behaviour of Gen Z in how they desire to entertain themselves within an autonomous vehicle. The study suggests what to consider regarding maximising in-car entertaining experiences for Gen Z

Supporting learning in intelligent tutoring systems with motivational strategies.

Motivation and affect detection are prominent yet challenging areas of research in the field of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs). Devising strategies to engage learners and motivate them to practice regularly are of great interest to researchers. In the learning and education domain, where students use ITSs regularly, motivating them to engage with the system effectively may lead to higher learning outcomes. Therefore, developing an ITS which provides a complete learning experience to students by catering to their cognitive, affective, metacognitive, and motivational needs is an ambitious yet promising area of research. This dissertation is the first step towards this goal in the context of SQL-Tutor, a mature ITS for tutoring SQL. In this research project, I have conducted a series of studies to detect and evaluate learners' affective states and employed various strategies for increasing motivation and engagement to improve learning from SQL-Tutor. Firstly, I established the reliability of iMotions to correctly identify learners' emotions and found that worked examples alleviated learners' frustration while solving problems with SQL-Tutor. Gamification is introduced as a motivational strategy to persuade learners to practice with the system. Gamification has emerged as a strong engagement and motivation strategy in learning environments for young learners. I evaluated the effects of gamified SQL-Tutor on undergraduate students and found that gamification indirectly improved learning by influencing learners’ time on task. It helped students by increasing their motivation which produce similar effects as intrinsically motivated students. Additionally, prior knowledge, gamification experience, and interest in the topic moderated the effects of gamification. Lastly, self-regulated learning support is presented as another strategy to affect learners’ internal motivation and skills. The support provided in the form of interventions improved students’ learning outcomes. Additionally, the learners' challenge-accepting behaviour, problem selection, goal setting, and self-reflection have improved with support without experiencing any negative emotions. This research project contributes to the latest trends of motivation and learning research in ITS

Build it so they will come? Feasibility and efficacy of a gamified personalized normative feedback alcohol intervention for sexual minority women.

Sexual minority women (SMW) disproportionately engage in heavy drinking and shoulder the burden of alcohol dependence. Much research has emphasized the need for culturally tailored alcohol interventions for this population, highlighting sexual minority stigma-related experiences, maladaptive coping, and misperceived peer drinking and coping norms as potential intervention targets. Focusing on the latter, this research examines the potential utility of personalized normative feedback (PNF) in reducing consumption among moderate and heavy drinking SMW. PNF is a popular, evidence-based intervention strategy associated with reliable (albeit modest) reductions in alcohol use in other heavy drinking populations. To remedy limitations associated with traditional PNF intervention formats and tailor this strategy to reflect the interests, social identities, and stigma experiences of SMW, a novel gamified intervention format was developed wherein PNF on drinking and coping behaviors was organically delivered to SMW within LezParlay, a larger competition designed to challenge negative stereotypes about lesbian, bisexual, queer (LBQ) women and increase the visibility of community members. The current study evaluates the efficacy and feasibility of this approach. In total, 2,677 LBQ women between the ages of 21 and 65 years signed up to take part in the LezParlay competition, with players logging over 44,0000 web app page views. Following several rounds of play, a sub-sample of 499 moderate-to-heavy drinking SMW were randomized to receive 1 of 3 sequences of PNF (i.e., alcohol+coping, alcohol+control, or control topics only) over two subsequent rounds. Alcohol use was assessed prior to randomization and two months post-intervention, along with potential demographic and sexual minority stigma-related moderators. Following the competition, these participants completed feedback surveys assessing acceptability, perceived benefits, and ideas for future versions of LezParlay. At follow-up, participants who received alcohol+coping and alcohol+control PNF significantly reduced their alcohol consumption relative to those who received control PNF only (d =.49 -.50). No differences were observed between treatment conditions overall; however, moderator analyses revealed alcohol+coping PNF to be more effective than alcohol only PNF among SMW who entered the study as heavier drinkers. Interpersonal stigma exposure also moderated intervention efficacy with enhanced effects observed among SMW in both treatment conditions reporting greater (relative to lesser) violence and harassment due to sexual minority status. Study participants found the competition to be highly acceptable and 93% reported psychological benefits, which most frequently included stigma reduction, social comparison, community connection, entertainment, self-confrontation, and mood enhancement. Findings support the feasibility and efficacy of this palatable approach to alcohol intervention for SMW, suggest that culturally tailored game mechanics may bolster PNF intervention engagement and potentially carry psychological benefits beyond core intervention content, and illuminate several priority directions for future research. Foremost, as findings suggest that PNF may particularly risk-reducing in the context of severe interpersonal stigma experiences like violence and harassment due to sexual minority status, additional research with SMW and members of other stigmatized groups is needed to more extensively examine potential interactions between norm correcting PNF and sexual minority stigma experiences in the context of heavy drinking and other health-risk behaviors. More broadly, this research advances several new directions for PNF intervention research, demonstrates the efficiency of hybrid feasibility/efficacy trial designs for evaluating digital health interventions, and illuminates the potential utility of incognito digital health intervention formats for nonclinical populations

Defining and Measuring Engagement With Digital Behavior Change Interventions: Application to the Skata Mobile Application for Family Planning in Indonesia

Background: There is growing excitement about the potential of digital behavior change interventions (DBCIs) in low and middle-income countries. However, there is limited research on how to define and measure factors that facilitate and inhibit continued participation or “engagement” in DBCIs. Parent Study: The dissertation was situated in the MyChoice program, which addresses family planning (FP) demand, supply and service delivery issues. The Skata application (app) and website are a portion of the digital strategy for generating FP demand in Indonesia. Methods & Results: This study begins with a concept explication of engagement with DBCIs. The concept consists of three dimensions (cognitive, emotional and behavioral engagement) and four phases describing behavioral engagement over time. An Extended Engagement Index (EEI) is proposed to align with the concept of engagement with DBCIs. Applying the EEI to Skata mobile application and website usage data, we find high internal consistency of the scale (Chronbach’s Alpha = .8630) and good criterion validity in comparing EEI to a more traditional engagement measure, specifically length of DBCI use. Five factors representing motivations for Skata use are identified, four of which describe seeking and scanning motivations that significantly predict higher engagement with Skata. Comparing these motivations and experiences of Skata engagement qualitatively, we find scanners tend to access a broad variety of features while seekers making planning and contraceptive decisions tend to use a narrow set of features repeatedly before disengagement. For many Skata users, interpersonal communication represents an important step in the conceptual framework connecting engagement in a health topic with engagement in a related DBCI, and mediating the path to behavior change. Significance: The field of digital health is growing rapidly, but standardized metrics have not been widely adopted and thus engagement with DBCIs is still understudied. This research fills significant gaps in the literature to develop a framework for DBCI outcome evaluation

Supporting users' influence in gamification settings and game live-streams

Playing games has long been important to mankind. One reason for this is the associated autonomy, as players can decide on many aspects on their own and can shape the experience. Game-related sub-fields have appeared in Human-Computer Interaction where this autonomy is questionable: in this thesis, we consider gamification and game live-streams and here, we support the users' influence at runtime. We hypothesize that this should affect the perception of autonomy and should lead to positive effects overall. Our contribution is three-fold: first, we investigate crowd-based, self-sustaining systems in which the user's influence directly impacts the outcome of the system's service. We show that users are willing to expend effort in such systems even without additional motivation, but that gamification is still beneficial here. Second, we introduce "bottom-up" gamification, i.e., the idea of self-tailored gamification. Here, users have full control over the gamification used in a system, i.e., they can set it up as they see fit at the system's runtime. Through user studies, we show that this has positive behavioral effects and thus adds to the ongoing efforts to move away from "one-size-fits-all" solutions. Third, we investigate how to make gaming live-streams more interactive, and how viewers perceive this. We also consider shared game control settings in live-streams, in which viewers have full control, and we contribute options to support viewers' self-administration here.Seit jeher nehmen Spiele im Leben der Menschen eine wichtige Rolle ein. Ein Grund hierfür ist die damit einhergehende Autonomie, mit der Spielende Aspekte des Spielerlebnisses gestalten können. Spiele-bezogene Teilbereiche werden innerhalb der Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion untersucht, bei denen dieser Aspekt jedoch diskutabel ist: In dieser Arbeit betrachten wir Gamification und Spiele Live-Streams und geben Anwendern mehr Einfluss. Wir stellen die Hypothese auf, dass sich dies auf die Autonomie auswirkt und zu positiven Effekten führt. Der Beitrag dieser Dissertation ist dreistufig: Wir untersuchen crowdbasierte, selbsterhaltende Systeme, bei denen die Einflussnahme des Einzelnen sich auf das Systemergebnis auswirkt. Wir zeigen, dass Nutzer aus eigenem Antrieb bereit sind, sich hier einzubringen, der Einfluss von Gamification sich aber förderlich auswirkt. Im zweiten Schritt führen wir "bottom-up" Gamification ein. Hier hat der Nutzer die volle Kontrolle über die Gamification und kann sie nach eigenem Ermessen zur Laufzeit einstellen. An Hand von Nutzerstudien belegen wir daraus resultierende positive Verhaltenseffekte, was die anhaltenden Bemühungen bestärkt, individuelle Gamification-Konzepte anzubieten. Im dritten Schritt untersuchen wir, wie typische Spiele Live-Streams für Zuschauer interaktiver gestaltet werden können. Zudem betrachten wir Fälle, in denen Zuschauer die gemeinsame Kontrolle über ein Spiel ausüben und wie dies technologisch unterstützt werden kann