Niondeklassares uppfattningar och erfarenheter av elevinflytande

Syfte: I detta arbete vill jag lyfta fram niondeklassares uppfattningar och erfarenheter av elevinflytande på en grundskola för de senare skolåren. Jag vill också ta reda på i vilken mån skolans uttryckta ambitioner för elevinflytandet gett effekt, samt jämföra elevernas uppfattningar och erfarenheter av elevdemokrati med läroplanens. Metod: Kvalitativa intervjuer med åtta niondeklassare. Slutsatser: Utifrån studien kan utläsas att eleverna i stort är nöjda med sitt inflytande på skolan, men också att de vill ha mer inflytande. Främst vill de ha ökat inflytande över undervisningen, vilket de upplever sker i för liten omfattning och enbart hos någon enstaka lärare. Uppfattningarna om vad som går respektive inte går att ändra på skiljer sig i vissa fall kraftigt åt. Områden som förknippas starkast med inflytande är bland andra skolmaten, toaletterna, ordningsreglerna och elevrådet. Eleverna upplever att möjligheterna till inflytande blivit bättre, och deras upplevda grad av inflytande skiljer sig mycket beroende på enskilda lärares uppfattningar om elevinflytande. Skolan behöver arbeta mer med att förbättra det informella elevinflytandet, medan det formella elevinflytandet upplevs vara bra. Elevernas uppfattningar om det egna inflytandet stämmer inte överens med vad som står om elevinflytande i läroplanen. Den tydligaste bristen ligger i att många elever upplever sig ha lite eller mycket lite inflytande över undervisningen. Jag drar utifrån undersökningen också slutsatsen att skolans uttryckta ambitioner för elevinflytandet har gett effekt.

Extending Game User Experience - Exploring Player Feedback and Satisfaction : The Birth of the Playsona

Video games are experience-based products and user satisfaction is key for their popularity. To design for as strong an experience as possible, game developers incorporate evaluation methods that help to discover their users’ expectations and needs. Despite such efforts, problems still occur with the game design that lower the user experience. To counter these problems, the evaluation methods should be investigated and improved. To address this need, I have explored various design tools and user experience theories. Applying these in a game evaluation context, I have analyzed user-created game reviews and conducted longitudinal user interview- and game diary studies in connection to playing a newly released game, in other words different methods to take advantage of users' expectations, opinions, attitudes and experiences. One result of the analysis of the obtained data is a set of “slogans” that illustrate how and why users lose interest in a game. A second result is a method for extracting user attitudes from pre-produced user reviews and how this can be used in game development. Thirdly, I introduce an alternative model, aimed at game user experience development, the Playsona. The Playsona is a lightweight tool that introduces a variant of the Persona-method, specifically for video game design.At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Manuscript.</p

Extending Game User Experience - Exploring Player Feedback and Satisfaction : The Birth of the Playsona

Video games are experience-based products and user satisfaction is key for their popularity. To design for as strong an experience as possible, game developers incorporate evaluation methods that help to discover their users’ expectations and needs. Despite such efforts, problems still occur with the game design that lower the user experience. To counter these problems, the evaluation methods should be investigated and improved. To address this need, I have explored various design tools and user experience theories. Applying these in a game evaluation context, I have analyzed user-created game reviews and conducted longitudinal user interview- and game diary studies in connection to playing a newly released game, in other words different methods to take advantage of users' expectations, opinions, attitudes and experiences. One result of the analysis of the obtained data is a set of “slogans” that illustrate how and why users lose interest in a game. A second result is a method for extracting user attitudes from pre-produced user reviews and how this can be used in game development. Thirdly, I introduce an alternative model, aimed at game user experience development, the Playsona. The Playsona is a lightweight tool that introduces a variant of the Persona-method, specifically for video game design.At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Manuscript.</p

Probing User Opinions in an Indirect Way : An Aspect Based Sentiment Analysis of Game Reviews

This paper presents a method for gathering and evaluating user attitudes towards previously released video games. A three-part video game franchise was selected, and all user reviews of these games were collected. The most frequently mentioned words of the game were derived from this dataset through word frequency analysis. The words, called “aspects” were then further analyzed through a manual aspect based sentiment analysis. The final analysis show that the rating of user review to a high degree correlate with the sentiment of the aspect in question. This knowledge is valuable for a developer who wishes to learn more about previous games success or failure factors

Fast IMRT with narrow high energy scanned photon beams

Purpose: Since the first publications on intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) in the early 1980s almost all efforts have been focused on fairly time consuming dynamic or segmental multileaf collimation. With narrow fast scanned photon beams, the flexibility and accuracy in beam shaping increases, not least in combination with fast penumbra trimming multileaf collimators. Previously, experiments have been performed with full range targets, generating a broad bremsstrahlung beam, in combination with multileaf collimators or material compensators. In the present publication, the first measurements with fast narrow high energy (50 MV) scanned photon beams are presented indicating an interesting performance increase even though some of the hardware used were suboptimal. Methods: Inverse therapy planning was used to calculate optimal scanning patterns to generate dose distributions with interesting properties for fast IMRT. To fully utilize the dose distributional advantages with scanned beams, it is necessary to use narrow high energy beams from a thin bremsstrahlung target and a powerful purging magnet capable of deflecting the transmitted electron beam away from the generated photons onto a dedicated electron collector. During the present measurements the scanning system, purging magnet, and electron collimator in the treatment head of the MM50 racetrack accelerator was used with 3-6 mm thick bremsstrahlung targets of beryllium. The dose distributions were measured with diodes in water and with EDR2 film in PMMA. Monte Carlo simulations with GEANT4 were used to study the influence of the electrons transmitted through the target on the photon pencil beam kernel. Results: The full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the scanned photon beam was 34 mm measured at isocenter, below 9.5 cm of water, 1 m from the 3 mm Be bremsstrahlung target. To generate a homogeneous dose distribution in a 10 x 10 cm(2) field, the authors used a spot matrix of 100 equal intensity beam spots resulting in a uniformity of collimated 80%-20% penumbra of 9 mm at a primary electron energy of 50 MeV. For the more complex cardioid shaped dose distribution, they used 270 spots, which at a pulse repetition frequency of 200 Hz is completed every 1.36 s. Conclusions: The present measurements indicate that the use of narrow scanned photon beams is a flexible and fast method to deliver advanced intensity modulated beams. Fast scanned photon IMRT should, therefore, be a very interesting modality in the delivery of biologically optimized radiation therapy with the possibility for in vivo treatment verification with PET-CT imaging.authorCount :5Affiliation for 4 of the authors of the Stockholm University: Department of Medical Radiation Physics, Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm Universit

Games for learning

This chapter discusses educational aspects and possibilities of serious games. For researchers as well as game designers we describe key learning theories to ground their work in theoretical framework. We draw on recent metareviews to offer an exhaustive inventory of known learning and affective outcomes in serious games, and to discuss assessment methods valuable not only for research but also for efficient serious game design. The implementation and design of serious games are outlined in separated sections. Different individual characteristics that seem to be strongly affecting process of learning with serious games (learning style, gender and age) are discussed with emphasis on game development

Fast IMRT with narrow high energy scanned photon beams

Purpose: Since the first publications on intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) in the early 1980s almost all efforts have been focused on fairly time consuming dynamic or segmental multileaf collimation. With narrow fast scanned photon beams, the flexibility and accuracy in beam shaping increases, not least in combination with fast penumbra trimming multileaf collimators. Previously, experiments have been performed with full range targets, generating a broad bremsstrahlung beam, in combination with multileaf collimators or material compensators. In the present publication, the first measurements with fast narrow high energy (50 MV) scanned photon beams are presented indicating an interesting performance increase even though some of the hardware used were suboptimal. Methods: Inverse therapy planning was used to calculate optimal scanning patterns to generate dose distributions with interesting properties for fast IMRT. To fully utilize the dose distributional advantages with scanned beams, it is necessary to use narrow high energy beams from a thin bremsstrahlung target and a powerful purging magnet capable of deflecting the transmitted electron beam away from the generated photons onto a dedicated electron collector. During the present measurements the scanning system, purging magnet, and electron collimator in the treatment head of the MM50 racetrack accelerator was used with 3-6 mm thick bremsstrahlung targets of beryllium. The dose distributions were measured with diodes in water and with EDR2 film in PMMA. Monte Carlo simulations with GEANT4 were used to study the influence of the electrons transmitted through the target on the photon pencil beam kernel. Results: The full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the scanned photon beam was 34 mm measured at isocenter, below 9.5 cm of water, 1 m from the 3 mm Be bremsstrahlung target. To generate a homogeneous dose distribution in a 10 x 10 cm(2) field, the authors used a spot matrix of 100 equal intensity beam spots resulting in a uniformity of collimated 80%-20% penumbra of 9 mm at a primary electron energy of 50 MeV. For the more complex cardioid shaped dose distribution, they used 270 spots, which at a pulse repetition frequency of 200 Hz is completed every 1.36 s. Conclusions: The present measurements indicate that the use of narrow scanned photon beams is a flexible and fast method to deliver advanced intensity modulated beams. Fast scanned photon IMRT should, therefore, be a very interesting modality in the delivery of biologically optimized radiation therapy with the possibility for in vivo treatment verification with PET-CT imaging.authorCount :5Affiliation for 4 of the authors of the Stockholm University: Department of Medical Radiation Physics, Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm Universit