ONLINE SHOPPING’S VITAL INTERFACE COMPONENTS AND THEIR RELATIVE IMPORTANCE IN ONLINE SHOPPING TASKS: A CONJOINT APPROACH

ii Empirical exploration of how online consumers interpret and value the marketing communication embedded in shopping interface components has the potential to advance knowledge of online consumer behavior and to inform design decisions concerning consumer-oriented Web sites. To date, little research has been completed regarding how interface components hinder or aid consumer perceptions of the online marketing message. This dissertation investigates the relative importance of online shopping interface components for online consumer shopping tasks and the role they play within the context of the Elaboration Likelihood Model’s central and peripheral routes of persuasion. The important and relative issues surrounding online shopping were explored, finding the core components of convenience, access to information, and trust. These components were then implemented in an online shopping task. Respondents considered thoughtfully (central route) marketing messages that involved issues of minimizing travel, information access, and fraud protection. The specific preference of respondent

Synchronous learning best practices: An action research study

Low cost and significant advances in technology now allow instructors to create their own virtual learning environments. Creating social interactions within a virtual space that emulates the physical classroom remains challenging. While students are familiar with virtual worlds and video meetings, they are inexperienced as virtual learners. Over a nine year period we applied iterative cycles of action research through numerous large classes to systematically uncover attributes of success when executing synchronous learning in distributed environments. Findings show technology is not the source of problems; rather, difficulties emerge from human behaviors and their interactions with system features. We conclude with practical takeaway guidelines for video conferencing and immersive virtual environments and a model of nexus of control that elaborates software and classroom management attributes that can lead to successful execution

Performance, cognitive load, and behaviour of technology‐assisted English listening learning: From CALL to MALL

This study examines differences in English listening comprehension, cognitive load, and learning behaviour between outdoor ubiquitous learning and indoor computer‐assisted learning. An experimental design, employing a pretest‐posttest control group is employed. Randomly assigned foreign language university majors joined either the experimental group (outdoor ubiquitous learning), with 80 participants (26 males and 54 females), or a control group (indoor computer‐assisted learning), with 80 participants (27 males and 53 females). The experiment lasted 3 weeks. Both groups were administered a test of English listening proficiency before and after the experiment along with a questionnaire of cognitive load postexperiment. Prior English listening proficiency forms a covariate for the multivariate analysis of covariance. Results show (a) students in the experimental group exhibit significantly better English listening comprehension after the experiment compared to the control group; (b) students in the experimental group reported significantly lower cognitive load than the control group; (c) English listening comprehension and cognitive load exhibited a statistically significant negative relationship; and (d) outdoor ubiquitous learning enhanced self‐reported learning interests and interactions more than indoor computer‐assisted learning. Contributions and significances of this study are presented based on these results. Finally, implications for teaching practices are proposed

Service Expectations of Patients Across Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Paradigms

Objective: To quantify differences in patient expectations of healthscape (e.g., interior environment) across Western medicine (WM) and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) paradigms. Data sources/study setting: Primary survey data comprise 469 Taiwanese consumers. National insurance coverage of both TCM and WM is an ideal setting to test for differences in healthscape expectations. Study design: Respondents report their recent experience as either exclusive users of TCM, exclusive WM, neither, or dual usage (both TCM and WM), and are randomly assigned to one of two surveys (identical except one refers to WM contexts, the other TCM) to rate the importance of 28 healthscape factors derived from previous studies. Data collection/extraction methods: Multivariate analysis of variance is used to test the research hypotheses. Principal findings: Dual users accept some differences across paradigms. In contrast, exclusive WM users apply their existing WM expectations to TCM contexts, raising the possibility of dissatisfaction and low adoption. Conclusions: A person's experience with TCM is related to acceptance of healthscape differences. Medical service providers of TCM, and by extension complementary and alternative medicine, should devise strategies to ease initial visitation by exclusive WM users. Healthscape designs need not be modeled closely on a WM standard, as dual users accept differences

Validation of a Measure of Chinese Outpatients’ Satisfaction in the Taiwan Setting

The medical services market is rapidly expanding around the world, following the experience of the industrialized Western economies. Cultural differences make existing assumptions about health care quality risky to export, leading to an increasing interest in understanding patient satisfaction with care within non-Western contexts. Within the Greater China region, both Western and traditional Chinese medicine coexist, yet there is a lack of research instruments that include distinct values of Chinese patients. This article reports the development of a measure of Chinese patient satisfaction with outpatient care. We describe the foundation of the scale in a qualitative report that includes 8 dimensions of Chinese patient satisfaction. A sample of 400 Chinese patients completed the final instrument. A quantitative analytical procedure leads to a 6-dimension and 27-item instrument to measure Chinese patients’ satisfaction with outpatient care. Our proposed instrument has good internal consistency supporting the use of the instrument in contexts where Chinese patients are being treated