The influence of online reviews on decision making – implications to the travel industry

This study adopts a quantitative approach using a factorial between-subjects experimental design to determine the effects of online reviews on brand trust and consumer equity. Customer equity links closely with customer value, brand value and relationships unlike willingness to buy. An online user discussion forum was purpose-built to conduct experimental research for this study, using a restricted probability sample of 269 participants drawn from a registered US online panel. The key findings from the research are: (a) that the valence of consumer-to-consumer online reviews positively affects consumer equity, which further supports previous findings; (b) that negative online reviews cause value equity to decrease, positive online reviews cause brand equity to increase, and negative online reviews cause brand equity and relationship equity to decrease equally; (c) as brand trust increases, the change in the consumer equity drivers (value, brand and relationship) tend to become more negative, thereby affecting customer equity (this is a significant new finding); and (d) that contrary to the literature, consumer-to-consumer online reviews demonstrated no significant relationship with brand trust

Constraining the Galactic potential via action-based distribution functions for mono-abundance stellar populations

We present a rigorous and practical way of constraining the Galactic potential based on the phase-space information for many individual stars. Such an approach is needed to dynamically model the data from ongoing spectroscopic surveys of the Galaxy and in the future Gaia. This approach describes the orbit distribution of stars by a family of parametrized distribution function (DF) proposed by McMillan and Binney, which are based on actions. We find that these parametrized DFs are flexible enough to capture well the observed phase-space distributions of individual abundance-selected Galactic subpopulations of stars ('mono-abundance populations') for a disc-like gravitational potential, which enables independent dynamical constraints from each of the Galactic mono-abundance populations. We lay out a statistically rigorous way to constrain the Galactic potential parameters by constructing the joint likelihood of potential and DF parameters, and subsequently marginalizing over the DF parameters. This approach explicitly incorporates the spatial selection function inherent to all Galactic surveys, and can account for the uncertainties of the individual position-velocity observations. On that basis, we study the precision of the parameters of the Galactic potential that can be reached with various sample sizes and realistic spatial selection functions. By creating mock samples from the DF, we show that, even under a restrictive and realistic spatial selection function, given a two-parameter gravitational potential, one can recover the true potential parameters to a fewper cent with sample sizes of a few thousands. The assumptions of axisymmetry, of DFs that are smooth in the actions and of no time variation remain important limitations in our current stud

The relationship between brand trust, online customer reviews and willingness to purchase

This research investigates how online customer reviews, a particular form of electronic word of mouth (eWOM), affect consumer decision-making (willingness to purchase) during a first time purchase of services or products. Using brand trust as a mediating variable in the relationship between online customers reviews and the consumer’s willingness to buy, data was collected through a quasi-experiment approach and then analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling. The findings demonstrated that the reliable dimension of brand trust has a mediating effect on online customer reviews valance to willingness to buy while the intentionality dimension had little effect

Bringing Feedback in From the Outback via a Generic and Preference-Sensitive Instrument for Course Quality Assessment

Background: Much effort and many resources have been put into developing ways of eliciting valid and informative student feedback on courses in medical, nursing, and other health professional schools. Whatever their motivation, items, and setting, the response rates have usually been disappointingly low, and there seems to be an acceptance that the results are potentially biased. Objective: The objective of the study was to look at an innovative approach to course assessment by students in the health professions. This approach was designed to make it an integral part of their educational experience, rather than a marginal, terminal, and optional add-on as feedback . It becomes a weighted, but ungraded, part of the course assignment requirements. Methods: A ten-item, two-part Internet instrument, MyCourseQuality (MCQ-10D), was developed following a purposive review of previous instruments. Shorthand labels for the criteria are: Content, Organization, Perspective, Presentations, Materials, Relevance, Workload, Support, Interactivity, and Assessment. The assessment is unique in being dually personalized. In part 1, at the beginning of the course, the student enters their importance weights for the ten criteria. In part 2, at its completion, they rate the course on the same criteria. Their ratings and weightings are combined in a simple expected-value calculation to produce their dually personalized and decomposable MCQ score. Satisfactory (technical) completion of both parts contributes 10% of the marks available in the course. Providers are required to make the relevant characteristics of the course fully transparent at enrollment, and the course is to be rated as offered. A separate item appended to the survey allows students to suggest changes to what is offered. Students also complete (anonymously) the standard feedback form in the setting concerned. Results: Piloting in a medical school and health professional school will establish the organizational feasibility and acceptability of the approach (a version of which has been employed in one medical school previously), as well as its impact on provider behavior and intentions, and on student engagement and responsiveness. The priorities for future improvements in terms of the specified criteria are identified at both individual and group level. The group results from MCQ will be compared with those from the standard feedback questionnaire, which will also be completed anonymously by the same students (or some percentage of them). Conclusions: We present a protocol for the piloting of a student-centered, dually personalized course quality instrument that forms part of the assignment requirements and is therefore an integral part of the course. If, and how, such an essentially formative Student-Reported Outcome or Experience Measure can be used summatively, at unit or program level, remains to be determined, and is not our concern here

Resolution of conflict between parental genomes in a hybrid species

AbstractThe development of reproductive barriers against parent species is crucial during hybrid speciation, and post-zygotic isolation can be important in this process. Genetic incompatibilities that normally isolate the parent species can become sorted in hybrids to form reproductive barriers towards either parent. However, the extent to which this sorting process is systematically biased and therefore predictable in which loci are involved and which alleles are favored is largely unknown. Theoretically, reduced fitness in hybrids due to the mixing of differentiated genomes can be resolved through rapid evolution towards allelic combinations ancestral to lineage-splitting of the parent species, as these alleles have successfully coexisted in the past. However, for each locus, this effect may be influenced by its chromosomal location, function, and interactions with other loci. We use the Italian sparrow, a homoploid hybrid species that has developed post-zygotic barriers against its parent species, to investigate this prediction. We show significant bias towards fixation of the ancestral allele among 57 nuclear intragenic SNPs, particularly those with a mitochondrial function whose ancestral allele came from the same parent species as the mitochondria. Consistent with increased pleiotropy leading to stronger fitness effects, genes with more protein-protein interactions were more biased in favor of the ancestral allele. Furthermore, the number of protein-protein interactions was especially low among candidate incompatibilities still segregating within Italian sparrows, suggesting that low pleiotropy allows steep intraspecific clines in allele frequencies to form. Finally, we report evidence for pervasive epistatic interactions within one Italian sparrow population, particularly involving loci isolating the two parent species but not hybrid and parent. However there was a lack of classic incompatibilities and no admixture linkage disequilibrium. This suggests that parental genome admixture can continue to constrain evolution and prevent genome stabilization long after incompatibilities have been purged.</jats:p

Implementing the threshold learning outcomes for agriculture at university

The national Learning and Teaching Academics Standards statement for agriculture (AgLTAS) describes the nature and extent of the discipline and threshold learning outcomes (TLOs) that define what a graduate should know and understand and what core skills they should have at graduation. The AgLTAS statement has been endorsed by the Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture and can be used to communicate to current and future students the minimum standards of their degree, as well as be used to inform curriculum design. While the AgLTAS document provides explanatory notes to assist educators to further understand the intent of the TLOs there are no exemplars on how the AgLTAS standards can be implemented. We will present two case studies of how academics at the University of Tasmania and the University of Adelaide used the AgLTAS to map their respective agriculture curricula. An online Curriculum Mapping Tool (CMT) was used to evaluate the alignment between the curriculum and the TLOs and to identify gaps in the curriculum where improvement may be required. Workshop participants completed pre- and post-workshop questionnaires to evaluate the benefits of mapping the curriculum for the respective degrees against the AgLTAS TLOs. The pre-workshop questionnaire collected demographic data about the participants and their knowledge about the agriculture TLOs, degree and the Australian Qualifications Framework. The post-workshop questionnaire established perceived changes in each participant’s awareness, knowledge, connection with the teaching team and curriculum. It was also used to inform the development of the explanatory notes section in the AgLTAS statement. In addition, four units from each University were chosen randomly for external benchmarking. The output from the CMT demonstrated that the degrees met or in some instances exceeded the graduate level TLOs for agriculture. Determining the proficiency level for a TLO can be an issue, as to the difference between explicit learning outcomes that might be expected at introductory level, but which at advanced levels are regarded as implicit. External reviewers examined the curricula of courses at the two Universities for alignment to the TLOs to identify and enable correction for academic bias in internally mapping units. The external evaluation aligned well with the results from the CMT. A combination of external review and curriculum mapping workshops involving the entire teaching team is however still recommended when mapping degrees to TLOs. The process of curriculum mapping was shown to provide most academics with a more holistic view of how the degree meets the AgLTAS and has the potential to drive innovation in assessment design. Curriculum mapping also assisted academics by reinforcing their understanding of constructive alignment between assessment and learning outcomes at the unit, course and the discipline threshold standards. We will also provide commentary on what we believe is the next steps and implications of the AgLTAS for curriculum development, industry engagement and graduate employability in the agriculture discipline

Peer tutoring: its effects on subject mastery and Mathematics anxiety among elementary education teaching interns

Teachers’ subject mastery and anxiety towards mathematics affect their performance in teaching the subject. This quasi-experimental study aimed to determine the effects of peer tutoring on mathematics subject mastery and mathematics anxiety among teaching interns. Intact groups of 35 Bachelor of Elementary Education (BEEd) students participated as tutees and 32 Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSEd) students with specialization in Mathematics participated as tutors in this study. Quantitative data were analysed using inferential statistics. Results revealed that peer tutoring was effective in increasing mathematics subject mastery; however, it had not been effective in reducing mathematics anxiety. Moreover, albeit insignificantly, as the participants’ subject mastery increases, their anxiety decreases, and that mathematics anxiety is an insignificant predictor of subject mastery. The findings implicate that a peer tutoring program can be beneficial in equipping general education prospective teachers with sufficient content knowledge and confidence to teach mathematics; hence, further research on a functional peer tutoring process is recommended. Moreover, it is also suggested that future research be conducted on peer tutoring for other subject areas and prolonged period of peer tutoring sessions