Individual Experience and Engagement in Avatar-Mediated Environments: The Mediating Effect of Interpersonal Attraction

2021 ◽  
pp. 073563312110510
Author(s):  
Fahad M. Alblehai

The application of different virtual reality interventions has been recently gaining interest from researchers and practitioners. Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, higher education institutions increased the use of these technologies to help create much value for educators and students. The relationship between individual experience and engagement in avatar-mediated environments has garnered empirical support, but still little is known about the mediating mechanisms underlying this relation. This study investigated the mediating role of interpersonal attraction (e.g., social, physical, and task attraction) in the link between individual experience and engagement in an avatar-mediated learning environment. A total of 112 participants (21–23 years; 73 male and 39 female) participated in online peer learning sessions in Second Life. After controlling for demographic covariates, the results showed that (1) individual experience was positively associated with students’ engagement; (2) social, physical, and task attraction was found to positively mediate the link between experience and engagement. The outcomes from this study provide valuable implications for promoting online learners’ engagement in avatar-mediated environments.

Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1261
Author(s):  
Aiping Tao ◽  
Qun Liang ◽  
Peng Kuai ◽  
Tao Ding

Based on the panel data of 224 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2003 to 2016, this paper empirically studies the impact of urban sprawl on air pollution and introduces a mediating effect model to test the mediating role of vehicle ownership concerning the impact of urban sprawl on air pollution. The research in this paper arrives at three conclusions. First, urban sprawl has a significant positive effect on air pollution, and this conclusion is still valid after solving the endogeneity problem and conducting a robustness test. Second, the results of mediating effect test show that urban sprawl indirectly affects air pollution through the partial mediating effect of vehicle ownership. By removing the mediating effect, urban sprawl has a significant negative impact on air pollution, indicating that the mediating effect of vehicle ownership is higher concerning the impact of urban sprawl on air pollution. Third, further panel quantile regression results show that the higher the level of air pollution, the weaker the mediating effect of vehicle ownership and the stronger the direct effect of urban sprawl on air pollution. These conclusions can provide some empirical support for solving the air pollution problems caused by urban sprawl in China.


2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (8) ◽  
pp. 955-969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mei-Ling Wang

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of learning climate on customer-oriented behaviors by incorporating salespeople’s customer knowledge in the banks. It also explores the mediating role of customer knowledge between learning climate and customer-oriented behaviors. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual two-level model that links learning climate to customer-oriented behaviors was developed and tested using data collected from salespeople and customers in banks in Taiwan. Data from 444 customers involving 92 salespeople was collected via a questionnaire and analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Findings – The results show that learning climate encourages salespeople to develop customer knowledge and customer-oriented behaviors, and that salespeople’s customer knowledge positively influences customer-oriented behaviors. This study also provides empirical support for the hypotheses that learning climate helps salespeople increase customer-oriented behaviors through improving salespeople’s customer knowledge. Research limitations/implications – The findings highlight the importance of enhancing learning climate and customer knowledge to enable banks to improve salespeople’s customer-oriented behaviors. This research also points to customer knowledge as mediating mechanisms that can explain the association between learning climate and customer-oriented behaviors in the sales context. Originality/value – By integrating knowledge management with organizational learning research, this study evaluates the effect of learning climate on salespeople’s customer-oriented behaviors by incorporating their customer knowledge. In addition, the present study points to salespeople’s customer knowledge as one of several mediating mechanisms that explains the association between learning climate and customer-oriented behaviors.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruining Wang ◽  
Baojuan Ye ◽  
Qiang Yang

Abstract Background: This study examined the mediating effect of anxiety and the moderating effect of COVID-19 burnout on the relationship between coronavirus stress and overeating among Chinese college students during the COVID-19 period. Methods: 2926 Chinese students (Mage = 19.90, SD = 1.47, range = 18 - 25, 54.3% female) completed self-reported questionnaires regarding coronavirus stress, anxiety, overeating, and COVID-19 burnout. The data was analyzed using Pearson’s r correlations and moderated mediation analysis. Results: The results revealed that anxiety mediated the link between coronavirus stress and college students’ overeating. College students’ COVID-19 burnout moderated the associations between anxiety and college students’ overeating. The association between coronavirus stress and anxiety was stronger for those with higher COVID-19 burnout. Discussion and conclusion: Findings of this study demonstrated that coronavirus stress was positively related to anxiety, which in turn, was related to overeating in college students. COVID-19 burnout enhanced this effect at indirect mediation paths, suggesting that college students with greater COVID-19 burnout may be more likely to have overeating behavior. This study identified the critical factors associated with overeating; it supplies empirical support for existing theories and provides practical implications for interventions aiming to decrease Chinese college students’ overeating during COVID-19 period.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 2281-2292
Author(s):  
Ying Zhao ◽  
Xinchun Wu ◽  
Hongjun Chen ◽  
Peng Sun ◽  
Ruibo Xie ◽  
...  

Purpose This exploratory study aimed to investigate the potential impact of sentence-level comprehension and sentence-level fluency on passage comprehension of deaf students in elementary school. Method A total of 159 deaf students, 65 students ( M age = 13.46 years) in Grades 3 and 4 and 94 students ( M age = 14.95 years) in Grades 5 and 6, were assessed for nonverbal intelligence, vocabulary knowledge, sentence-level comprehension, sentence-level fluency, and passage comprehension. Group differences were examined using t tests, whereas the predictive and mediating mechanisms were examined using regression modeling. Results The regression analyses showed that the effect of sentence-level comprehension on passage comprehension was not significant, whereas sentence-level fluency was an independent predictor in Grades 3–4. Sentence-level comprehension and fluency contributed significant variance to passage comprehension in Grades 5–6. Sentence-level fluency fully mediated the influence of sentence-level comprehension on passage comprehension in Grades 3–4, playing a partial mediating role in Grades 5–6. Conclusions The relative contributions of sentence-level comprehension and fluency to deaf students' passage comprehension varied, and sentence-level fluency mediated the relationship between sentence-level comprehension and passage comprehension.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Andreea Gheorghe ◽  
Oana Fodor ◽  
Anișoara Pavelea

This study explores the association between task conflict and team creativity and the role of group cognitive complexity (GCC) as a potential explanatory mechanism in a sample of 159 students organized in 49 groups. Moreover, we analyzed the moderating effect of collective emotional intelligence (CEI)in the relationship between task conflict and GCC.As hypothesized, we found that task conflict has a nonlinear relationship with GCC, but contrary to our expectations, it follows a U-shaped association, not an inversed U-shape. In addition,the moderating role of CEI was significant only at low levels. Contrary to our expectation, the mediating role of GCC did not receive empirical support. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuguang Sun ◽  
Ailing Huang

The intermediary effect interval of the preschool teachers' competence characteristics → positive psychological capital → the subjective well-being of the preschool teachers is (0.23—0.55), does not contain 0, and the effect amount is 0.35. The competency characteristics of preschool teachers → The direct effect interval of subjective well-being of preschool teachers is (0.05—0.36), excluding 0, and the effect quantity is 0.20, indicating that positive psychological capital as a mediator variable has the characteristics of preschool teachers and the subjective well-being of preschool teachers. Partial mediating effect, the ratio of mediating effect to total effect is 64.01%.


Author(s):  
G.P. Dang ◽  
Puneet Basur

Leadership Style has been since long acknowledged by management scholars as being an important subject in relation to organizational executions and outcome. An effective leadership would not only be able to prevent job stress and burnout among group members, but would also be successful in enhancing the motivation and engagement of the employees. It has been widely accepted that operational excellence in an organization can only be maintained through engaged employees. In this study the researchers have strived to enhance the understanding of the complex relationship between the organic leadership style and the engagement level of the employees and to further comprehend the mediating role of social relevance of work in association of the two constructs i.e. leadership style and employee engagement, in context of faculty members in higher education sector.


Author(s):  
Guoliang Yang ◽  
Zhihua Wang ◽  
Weijiong Wu

Little is known about the relationship between social comparison orientation and mental health, especially in the psychological capital context. We proposed a theoretical model to examine the impact of ability- and opinion-based social comparison orientation on mental health using data from 304 undergraduates. We also examined the mediating effect of the four psychological capital components of hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism in the relationship between social comparison orientation and mental health. Results show that an ability (vs. opinion) social comparison orientation was negatively (vs. positively) related to the psychological capital components. Further, the resilience and optimism components of psychological capital fully mediated the social comparison orientation–mental health relationship. Our findings indicate that psychological capital should be considered in the promotion of mental health, and that the two social comparison orientation types have opposite effects on psychological capital.


2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 630-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Won Ho Kim ◽  
Young-An Ra ◽  
Jong Gyu Park ◽  
Bora Kwon

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of burnout (i.e. exhaustion, cynicism, professional inefficacy) in the relationship between job level and job satisfaction as well as between job level and task performance. Design/methodology/approach The final sample included 342 Korean workers from selected companies. The authors employed the Hayes (2013) PROCESS tool for analyzing the data. Findings The results showed that all three subscales of burnout (i.e. exhaustion, cynicism, professional inefficacy) mediate the relationship between job level and job satisfaction. However, only two mediators (i.e. cynicism, professional inefficacy) indicated the mediating effects on the association between job level and task performance. Originality/value This research presented the role of burnout on the relationships between job level, job satisfaction, and task performance especially in South Korean organizational context. In addition to role of burnout, findings should prove helpful in improving job satisfaction and task performance. The authors provide implications and limitations of the findings.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0887302X2199428
Author(s):  
Hyejune Park ◽  
Seeun Kim

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the “virtual try-on” technology (AR) and the “3D virtual store” (VR) incorporated in an apparel retail website on purchase intentions. This study highlights the mediating role of cognitive elaboration in the process through which these technologies influence purchase intentions, and examines the way consumers’ shopping goals (searching vs. browsing) interact with the website technology and influence their responses. The two experiments demonstrated that, for browsers, the website with VR was more effective in increasing purchase intentions than were the website with AR or a regular website with no technology, while for searchers, both the website with AR and the website with VR were more effective than was a regular website. In addition, cognitive elaboration mediated the interaction between a technology and a shopping goal on purchase intentions for browsers, while such a mediating effect was not found in searchers.


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