‘It’s Almost Like Talking to a Person’: Student Disclosure to Pedagogical Agents in Sensitive Settings.

This paper presents findings of a pilot study which used pedagogical agents to examine disclosure in educational settings. The study used responsive evaluation to explore how use of pedagogical agents might affect students’ truthfulness and disclosure by asking them to respond to a lifestyle choices survey delivered by a web-based pedagogical agent. Findings indicate that emotional connection with pedagogical agents were intrinsic to the user’s sense of trust and therefore likely to affect levels of truthfulness and engagement. The implications of this study are that truthfulness, personalisation and emotional engagement are all vital components in using pedagogical agents to enhance online learning

Exploring collective leadership and coproduction: An empirical study

Replaced version without front matter with version with front matter 2021-02-08.This chapter explores coproduction through a collective leadership lens. It draws from the public administration and leadership fields and a 2019 empirical study of public service collaboration in Scotland, UK. It is suggested that tensions generated by working within a New Public Management model combined with frustrations felt from current collaborative practice have motivated an exploration into alternative conceptions of leadership and different ways of working when collaborating. The findings reveal that collaboration can be strengthened through the application of four key processual and attitudinal modifications. This approach is described as working in an emergent and relational way while applying a systems and inquiry mind-set. It is the effect of the sum of these parts that boosts the intensity of collaborative work, offering a number of benefits, including an enriched and dynamic coproduction process embedded within its practice.https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-4975-9pubpu

Case Study Method and Research Design: Flexibility or Availability for the Novice Researcher?

Case study is prominent in qualitative research literature, yet the methodologists do not have a full consensus on whether it is an approach, a method, a methodology or a design. Perhaps this flexibility contributes to ambiguity for the burgeoning researcher. The works of prominent methodologists, namely Robert Yin, Sharan Merriam, Robert Stake are explored as I attempt define case study and then explain how I have utilised ‘An Interactive Model of Research Design’ (Maxwell, 2009) as a ‘road map’ for engaging case study to investigate current practices in inclusivity and wellbeing. My contribution is to be a provocateur and explore the question: how do you surface deep knowledge in your interview participants? This chapter is designed to contribute knowledge to the field of research, specifically methodological information for the novice researcher considering using case study as a research method. Dually this chapter seeks to bring into focus examples of case study method applied to explore inclusion and wellbeing