A Persuasive Social Actor for Activity Awareness in Learning Groups

In collaborative learning groups, students’ awareness of each others’ activities is key to enhancing the effectiveness of collaboration. Some studies have reported that many of the breakdowns in collaboration in learning groups happen because of a lack of activity awareness. While some technologies have been developed to support activity awareness, the potential of persuasive technology has not yet been explored. We report the design, development and evaluation of a persuasive technology for this purpose in the form of a digital social actor. The design of the social actor was shaped by persuasive design principles. The evaluation involved 21 participants who used the app during group projects as part of a postgraduate course. Results showed that activity awareness increased towards the end of the project work and that participants felt the social actor changed their awareness behaviour. This research makes two contributions: it investigates a novel approach to promoting activity awareness in small learning groups by using a social actor to change students’ attitudes and behaviours, and it reports a first attempt to design, develop and evaluate a persuasive social actor based on the Persuasive Systems Design model.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Reem Al Ashaikh

Stephanie Wilson

Sara Jones

Conference

Publication date: July 2016

Publication date (Print): July 2016

Pages: 1-12

Affiliations

[0001]Centre for HCI Design

City University London

[0002]Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice City University London

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.45

SO-VID: c82a74d5-8484-441c-ba86-942c759a28fb

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of the 30th International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 30

Conference location: Bournemouth University, Poole, UK

Conference date: 11 - 15 July 2016

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Fusion

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.45

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

M. M. AlhammadS. Gulliver 2014 Consideration of persuasive technology on users acceptance of e-commerce: exploring perceived persuasiveness Journal of Communication and Computer 11 2 133 142
R. Al AshaikhS. WilsonS. Jones 2014 Exploring Awareness Behaviours and Collaboration Activities in Learning Groups. In: BCS Learning and Development Ltd. Proceedings of HCI 2014, Southport, UK. 376 377
N. AndersonC.-C. Lin 2009 Exploring technologies for building collaborative learning communities among diverse student populations. In: Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education - ITiCSE ’09. 243 247
B. E. BarbatR. Cretulscu 2003 Affordable Affective Avatars. Persuasion, Emotions and Language(s).
R. BehringerS. BurriG. HansenM. SoosayJ. MikuleckaN. W. NielsenE. Herber 2013 Persuasive Technology for Learning in Business Context In: Proceedings in Ascent 2013 Kuala Lumpur.
J. M. CarrollD. C. NealeP. L. IsenhourM. B. RossonD. S. McCrickard 2003 Notification and awareness: synchronizing task-oriented collaborative activity International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 58 5 605 632
J. M. CarrollM. B. RossonG. ConvertinoC. H. Ganoe 2006 Awareness and teamwork in computer-supported collaborations Interacting with Computers 18 1 21 46
G. ConvertinoD. C. NealeL. HobbyJ. M. CarrollM. B. Rosson 2004 A Laboratory Method for Studying Activity Awareness. In: NordiCHI ’04. Tampere, Finland, 23-27 October 2004. 313 322
D. M. DimitrovP. D. Rumrill 2003 Pretest-posttest designs and measurement of change Work 20 20 2 159 165
D. FirpoS. KasemvilasP. RacthamX. Zhang 2009 Generating a sense of community in a graduate educational setting through persuasive technology In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology - Persuasive ’09. Claremont, California, USA, 26-29 April. New York, USA ACM Press
B. J. Fogg 2003 Persuasive Technology: Using computers to change what we think and do San Francisco Morgan Kaufmann Publishers
B. J. Fogg 2009 Creating Persuasive Technologies: An Eight-Step Design Process In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology - Persuasive ’09. Claremont, California, USA, 26-29 April. New York, USA ACM Press
C. H. GanoeJ. P. SomervellD. C. NealeP. L. IsenhourJ. M. CarrollM. B. RossonD. S. Mccrickard 2003 Classroom BRIDGE: using collaborative public and desktop timelines to support activity awareness UIST ’03 Vancouver, BC, Canada 5 2 21 30
C. GutwinS. Greenberg 2001 The importance of awareness for team cognition in distributed collaboration. Report 2001-696-19 Dept Computer Science, University of Calgary, Alberta Canada
C. GutwinR. PennerK. Schneider 2004 Group awareness in distributed software development In: Proceedings of the 2004 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work - CSCW ’04. Chicago, Illinois, USA, 6-10 November 2004. 6 3 72 81
J. HamC. MiddenF. Beute 2009 Can Ambient Persuasive Technology Persuade Unconsciously □ ? Using Subliminal Feedback to Influence Energy Consumption Ratings of Household Appliances In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology - Persuasive ’09. Claremont, California, USA, 26-29 April New York, USA ACM Press
J. MintzM. Aagaard 2012 The application of persuasive technology to educational settings Educational Technology Research and Development 60 3 483 499
H. OgataY. Yano 2000 Combining Knowledge Awareness and Information Filtering in an Open-ended Collaborative Learning Environment International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education (IJAIED) 11 33 46
H. Oinas-kukkonenM. Harjumaa 2009 Persuasive Systems Design: Key Issues, Process Model, and System Features Communications of the Association for Information Systems 24 1 485 500
C. PhielixF. J. PrinsP. Kirschner 2010 Group Awareness of Social and Cognitive behavior in a CSCL Environment In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS 2010 1 1 230 237
P. M. SalmonN. a. StantonG. H. WalkerD. JenkinsD. LadvaL. RaffertyM. Young 2009 Measuring Situation Awareness in complex systems: Comparison of measures study International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 39 3 490 500
M. SugimotoF. KusunokiH. Hashizume 2002 Design of an interactive system for group learning support DIS2002 London 50 55

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] M. M. AlhammadS. Gulliver 2014 Consideration of persuasive technology on users acceptance of e-commerce: exploring perceived persuasiveness Journal of Communication and Computer 11 2 133 142

[2] R. Al AshaikhS. WilsonS. Jones 2014 Exploring Awareness Behaviours and Collaboration Activities in Learning Groups. In: BCS Learning and Development Ltd. Proceedings of HCI 2014, Southport, UK. 376 377

[3] N. AndersonC.-C. Lin 2009 Exploring technologies for building collaborative learning communities among diverse student populations. In: Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education - ITiCSE ’09. 243 247

[4] B. E. BarbatR. Cretulscu 2003 Affordable Affective Avatars. Persuasion, Emotions and Language(s).

[5] R. BehringerS. BurriG. HansenM. SoosayJ. MikuleckaN. W. NielsenE. Herber 2013 Persuasive Technology for Learning in Business Context In: Proceedings in Ascent 2013 Kuala Lumpur.

[6] J. M. CarrollD. C. NealeP. L. IsenhourM. B. RossonD. S. McCrickard 2003 Notification and awareness: synchronizing task-oriented collaborative activity International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 58 5 605 632

[7] J. M. CarrollM. B. RossonG. ConvertinoC. H. Ganoe 2006 Awareness and teamwork in computer-supported collaborations Interacting with Computers 18 1 21 46

[8] G. ConvertinoD. C. NealeL. HobbyJ. M. CarrollM. B. Rosson 2004 A Laboratory Method for Studying Activity Awareness. In: NordiCHI ’04. Tampere, Finland, 23-27 October 2004. 313 322

[9] D. M. DimitrovP. D. Rumrill 2003 Pretest-posttest designs and measurement of change Work 20 20 2 159 165

[10] D. FirpoS. KasemvilasP. RacthamX. Zhang 2009 Generating a sense of community in a graduate educational setting through persuasive technology In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology - Persuasive ’09. Claremont, California, USA, 26-29 April. New York, USA ACM Press

[11] B. J. Fogg 2003 Persuasive Technology: Using computers to change what we think and do San Francisco Morgan Kaufmann Publishers

[12] B. J. Fogg 2009 Creating Persuasive Technologies: An Eight-Step Design Process In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology - Persuasive ’09. Claremont, California, USA, 26-29 April. New York, USA ACM Press

[13] C. H. GanoeJ. P. SomervellD. C. NealeP. L. IsenhourJ. M. CarrollM. B. RossonD. S. Mccrickard 2003 Classroom BRIDGE: using collaborative public and desktop timelines to support activity awareness UIST ’03 Vancouver, BC, Canada 5 2 21 30

[14] C. GutwinS. Greenberg 2001 The importance of awareness for team cognition in distributed collaboration. Report 2001-696-19 Dept Computer Science, University of Calgary, Alberta Canada

[15] C. GutwinR. PennerK. Schneider 2004 Group awareness in distributed software development In: Proceedings of the 2004 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work - CSCW ’04. Chicago, Illinois, USA, 6-10 November 2004. 6 3 72 81

[16] J. HamC. MiddenF. Beute 2009 Can Ambient Persuasive Technology Persuade Unconsciously □ ? Using Subliminal Feedback to Influence Energy Consumption Ratings of Household Appliances In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology - Persuasive ’09. Claremont, California, USA, 26-29 April New York, USA ACM Press

[17] J. MintzM. Aagaard 2012 The application of persuasive technology to educational settings Educational Technology Research and Development 60 3 483 499

[18] H. OgataY. Yano 2000 Combining Knowledge Awareness and Information Filtering in an Open-ended Collaborative Learning Environment International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education (IJAIED) 11 33 46

[19] H. Oinas-kukkonenM. Harjumaa 2009 Persuasive Systems Design: Key Issues, Process Model, and System Features Communications of the Association for Information Systems 24 1 485 500

[20] C. PhielixF. J. PrinsP. Kirschner 2010 Group Awareness of Social and Cognitive behavior in a CSCL Environment In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS 2010 1 1 230 237

[21] P. M. SalmonN. a. StantonG. H. WalkerD. JenkinsD. LadvaL. RaffertyM. Young 2009 Measuring Situation Awareness in complex systems: Comparison of measures study International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 39 3 490 500

[22] M. SugimotoF. KusunokiH. Hashizume 2002 Design of an interactive system for group learning support DIS2002 London 50 55

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