Information Systems Research for the Next Generation: Child-Centricity in a Digital World

Traditionally, information systems (IS) research investigates socio-technical systems in organizations and the workplace. As IS have become an integral part of our daily lives, IS research nowadays also incorporates the private space. However, efforts to date have mostly focused on adults. Children, born into a digital world today, have been mostly left out. Yet our discipline not only has the potential to contribute to the adequate and child-friendly design of IS artifacts for children but can also help to further develop theories on children's behavior. For this to succeed, IS researchers need to adapt their approach to children. Ethical considerations should address children's vulnerability, the design of interventions should happen in close collaboration with children, research methods should be child-centered, and the specificities of children should be kept present in result analyses

No Longer Without a Reward: Do Digital Rewards Crowd Out Intrinsic Motivation of Young Children?

In the learning journey of young children, rewards are ubiquitous. Yet, psychologists and behavioral economists question the success of rewards and even claim that they displace intrinsic motivation, a phenomenon referred to as motivation crowding out. While information systems can help children learn everyday tasks, it is unclear if and when digital rewards produce motivation crowding out. Theoretically sound, empirical field studies on this topic are lacking and existing information system research on motivation crowding is limited to specific domains, not covering children’s behavior. Therefore, we aim to elicit how digital rewards influence an everyday health behavior that children learn in kindergarten – handwashing – and the underlying intrinsic motivation. We conduct a randomized controlled trial that is conceptualized in this paper. Our results will extend motivation crowding theory in the context of young children and inform the design of digital behavior change interventions

Leveraging Information Systems to Foster Sustainable and Healthy Behavior Change

Kumulative Dissertation, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 2023In recent decades, technology has emerged as a beacon of hope to aid humanity in addressing two pressing issues of our time: human health and climate change. However, despite advances in medicine and climate technology, rates of infectious diseases (Jones et al., 2008) and carbon dioxide emissions (Olivier & Peters, 2020) continue to rise. Alongside technological and systemic regulations, it is also the behavior of each individual that contributes to curtailing infectious diseases and carbon dioxide emissions. Yet, individuals often struggle to align their good intentions with their actual behavior. This gap underscores the complexity of breaking ingrained habits and adopting new behaviors, demanding more than mere intention. The question of how to achieve behavior change in the context of health and climate change is not easily answered; it requires extensive interdisciplinary research. Information Systems research can support and advance the study of behavior change through digital interventions. Digital interventions, due to their availability and scalability, stand as promising tools for facilitating behavior change and research. The inclusion of measurement instruments within technological devices furthermore allows for the collection of real-world behavioral data. Consequently, Information Systems research can not only contribute but also enhance the empirical validation and expansion of behavioral theories. Despite the potential that Information Systems hold in the realm of behavioral research, it remains a domain far from being fully explored. The main objectives of this dissertation are to provide insights into the effectiveness of digital interventions in fostering healthy and environmentally sustainable behavior within the real-world context, alongside the empirical validation of behavioral and motivation theories. To accomplish this, the dissertation adopts an interdisciplinary approach encompassing two experimental field studies and one survey field study. The field studies are centered on behavior change in the realms of health and sustainability behavior among children and employees. The first two chapters revolve around the outcomes of two large-scale field experiments, investigating hand washing behavior of children in day care centers. Within Chapter 1, a digital intervention is designed and the applicability and effectiveness of the intervention are affirmed across day care centers in Finland and Germany. The data indicate that soaping time of children, a proxy for hand washing quality, can be improved by 62% while the digital behavior intervention is in place. In Chapter 2, the intervention subsequently serves as a tool to empirically validate and expand behavioral theory, specifically the Motivation Crowding Theory. The results provide empirical evidence for the efficacy of digital rewards in children. This underscores the value of digital rewards while disproving potential negative effects as suggested by the Motivation Crowding Theory. The findings of Chapters 1 and 2 underscore the effectiveness of digital behavior change interventions leveraging digital rewards both in research and in practice. The research undertaken in this context can serve as a blueprint for Information Systems researchers venturing into behavioral research, particularly with children. Moreover, it offers practitioners guidance for the design of effective and scalable systems tailored to children. Chapter 3 presents the results of a field study that examines the motivations of train drivers to use Green Information Systems in the workplace and thus to contribute to energy savings in the transportation sector. The results of the interviews and surveys conducted for this purpose confirm the applicability of the Protection Motivation Theory in the context of Information Systems. The collected data show that employees’ moti- vation to engage in climate-protective behavior depends on their perception of their own response efficacy and the severity of climate change. The identified motivations provide important starting points for the development of digital behavior interventions aimed at promoting environmentally friendly behavior among employees. Overall, this thesis illustrates that Information Systems can support human behavior change, and serve as a tool to measure and examine behavior change and underlying behavioral theories. The conducted field studies underscore the effectiveness of digital interventions in real-world settings. With the chosen interdisciplinary approach and a combination of different methods, existing behavioral theories are utilized in the field of Information Systems, empirically validated, and expanded. The research emphasizes that Information Systems have the potential to assist individuals in changing their health and sustainability behavior, addressing two pressing issues of our time

Improving hand hygiene of young children with a digital intervention : a cluster-randomised controlled field trial

Contagious diseases that affect young children place a great burden on them and their families. Proper hand hygiene is an important measure to reduce the disease burden, however, its implementation in day care centres is challenging. This paper introduces a digital intervention to support independent and good handwashing among young children. The intervention leverages animated instructions triggered by water and soap use, together with a symbolic reward shown to children on a screen during and immediately after handwashing. We tested the intervention in a pre-registered, cluster-randomised controlled field trial in 4 day care centres in Finland and Germany with 162 children over 42 days. The intervention increased soaping time, used as a proxy for handwashing quality, by 5.30 s (+ 62%, p < 0.001). The effect occurs immediately at the onset of the intervention and is maintained throughout the intervention phase

Improving hand hygiene of young children with a digital intervention: a cluster-randomised controlled field trial

Contagious diseases that affect young children place a great burden on them and their families. Proper hand hygiene is an important measure to reduce the disease burden, however, its implementation in day care centres is challenging. This paper introduces a digital intervention to support independent and good handwashing among young children. The intervention leverages animated instructions triggered by water and soap use, together with a symbolic reward shown to children on a screen during and immediately after handwashing. We tested the intervention in a pre-registered, cluster-randomised controlled field trial in 4 day care centres in Finland and Germany with 162 children over 42 days. The intervention increased soaping time, used as a proxy for handwashing quality, by 5.30 s (+ 62%, p < 0.001). The effect occurs immediately at the onset of the intervention and is maintained throughout the intervention phase.ISSN:2045-232

Hand hygiene of kindergarten children-Understanding the effect of live feedback on handwashing behaviour, self-efficacy, and motivation of young children: Protocol for a multi-arm cluster randomized controlled trial.

Early implementation of interventions at a young age fosters behaviour changes and helps to adopt behaviours that promote health. Digital technologies may help to promote the hand hygiene behaviour of children. However, there is a lack of digital feedback interventions focusing on the hand hygiene behaviour of preschool children in childhood education and care settings. This study protocol aims to describe a study that evaluates the effectiveness of a gamified live feedback intervention and explores underlying behavioural theories in achieving better hand hygiene behaviour of preschool children in early childhood education and care settings. This study will be a four-arm cluster randomized controlled trial with three phases and a twelve-month follow-up by country stratification. The sample size is 106 children of which one cluster will have a minimum number of 40 children. During the baseline phase, all groups will have automated monitoring systems installed. In the intervention phase, the control group will have no screen activity. The intervention groups will have feedback displays during the handwashing activity. Intervention A will receive instructions, and intervention B and C groups will receive instructions and a reward. In the post-intervention phase, all the groups will have no screen activity except intervention C which will receive instructions from the screen but no reward. The outcome measures will be hand hygiene behaviour, self-efficacy, and intrinsic motivation. Outcome measures will be collected at baseline, intervention, and post-intervention phases and a 12-month follow-up. The data will be analysed with quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings of the planned study will provide whether this gamified live feedback intervention can be recommended to be used in educational settings to improve the hand hygiene behaviour of preschool children to promote health. The trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (registration number NCT05395988 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05395988?term=NCT05395988&draw=2&rank=1)

Uni.vers Forschung : das Magazin der Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg

Wenn Menschen die Technik weiterentwickeln, entstehen ständig neue Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen. Die Gesellschaft ist gefragt mitzudiskutieren, wie eine immer weiter digitalisierte Welt künftig aussehen könnte. Und die Forschung hilft dabei, dass sich jede und jeder Einzelne eine fundierte Meinung bilden kann. In dieser Ausgabe schreiben die Autorinnen und Autoren über den Einsatz der Technik im Alltag, die Zusammenarbeit von Menschen und Maschinen, das Pro und Contra der Digitalisierung