Use of measurement theory for operationalization and quantification of psychological constructs in systems dynamics modelling

The analytical tools available to social scientists have traditionally been adapted from tools originally designed for analysis of natural science phenomena. This article discusses the applicability of systems dynamics - a qualitative based modelling approach, as a possible analysis and simulation tool that bridges the gap between social and natural sciences. After a brief overview of the systems dynamics modelling methodology, the advantages as well as limiting factors of systems dynamics to the potential applications in the field of social sciences and human interactions are discussed. The issues arise with regards to operationalization and quantification of latent constructs at the simulation building stage of the systems dynamics methodology and measurement theory is proposed as a ready and waiting solution to the problem of dynamic model calibration, with a view of improving simulation model reliability and validity and encouraging the development of standardised, modular system dynamics models that can be used in social science research

Effects of scripting on dialogues, motivation and learning outcomes in serious games

Research on serious games shows that complementary design measures are often needed to increase effectiveness. The present study investigated the role of scripted collaboration. In such a collaboration, players are assigned roles or given specific tasks to stimulate them to communicate more about essential game aspects (eg, arguing why a move should be made versus merely suggesting a move), and thereby raise learning. A risk of scripted collaboration is that it can constrain communication so much that motivation drops. An experiment with eighth-grade students is reported in which a scripted and non-scripted condition were compared for their effects on the level of dialogic acts, motivation and learning outcomes. In the scripted condition, players were assigned opposing roles in a game that revolved around making smart choices by considering each perspective. The findings supported the prediction that scripting would raise the level of the dialogues. Scripting led to significantly more dialogic acts about deeper level game features. In addition, players in the scripted condition achieved a significantly higher mean score on a knowledge posttest. An exploratory analysis showed that higher level dialogic acts correlated with higher posttest scores. Motivation was the same in both conditions. Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic Without complementary support, serious games may yield low learning effects. Collaborative game-play helps raise the effectiveness only moderately. What this paper adds The effectiveness of learning from a serious game was investigated for a conflict script that stimulated players to adopt opposing roles. The conflict script did not affect the amount of talking. Gaming-the-game expressions predominantly coincided with relevant observations about game content. Scripted collaboration increased the level of the dialogic acts, and raised learning. Higher levels of dialogic acts were also positively related with higher learning outcomes. Implications for practice and/or policy Collaboration scripts can contribute substantially to game-based learning. They have the advantage that they can be constructed by educators. The design of a collaboration script requires careful balancing the need to stimulate certain kinds of game communications and avoiding imposing too much constraints on these communications

A survey of results on mobile phone datasets analysis

In this paper, we review some advances made recently in the study of mobile phone datasets. This area of research has emerged a decade ago, with the increasing availability of large-scale anonymized datasets, and has grown into a stand-alone topic. We will survey the contributions made so far on the social networks that can be constructed with such data, the study of personal mobility, geographical partitioning, urban planning, and help towards development as well as security and privacy issues