Youths’ Posting Practices on Social Media for Digital Storytelling

Most young people spend time online every day in order to access social networks, where not only do they consume, but also produce content. The posting of content ends up reflecting a personal story in which young people recognize themselves. This posting practice requires competences that can be developed in digital literacy-related educational activities. Our research is aimed at understanding the posting habits of young people with the goal of integrating these practices in formal educational contexts. For this purpose, we have qualitatively analyzed the interviews of 21 young people. The results show different posting habits, as well as the motivating factors, perceptions and types of content posted by young people on social networks. An interpretative analysis of the results shows the possibilities of working on the storytelling experiences of young people on social networks from the perspective of the Personal Digital Storytelling educational methodology.

Social Influence on Fad Diet Use: A Systematic Literature Review

Background: A fad diet is a broad term used to describe dieting methods that recommend altering the intake of macronutrients to specific proportions or instruct people to intake or avoid particular foods, often with the goal of rapid weight loss. Previous literature reviews report social influence impacts general diet behaviour, but have yet to examine fad diets, specifically. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review was to synthesize literature related to social influence on an individual's fad diet use and understand the sociocultural factors related to diet use. Methods: Using PRISMA guidelines, Medline, PsycInfo, Embase, CINAHL, and CENTRAL databases were searched to identify articles investigating the impact of social on fad diet use. Covidence was used to manage the review process and Garrard's Matrix Method was used to extract data from reviewed articles (n = 13). Results: A majority of reviewed studies examined interpersonal influence (62%) and reported social influence impacting a variety of fad diet behaviours (92%). Interpersonal and media influence were highlighted as motivating factors for adopting unhealthy dieting methods (54%), and studies showed interpersonal support impacted adoption and maintenance of fad diet use (23%). Also, social norms were reported to influence unhealthy weight control behaviours (15%). Discussion: This review revealed social influence is associated with the adoption, adherence, and termination of fad diets. The prevalence of fad diets in society and the lack of research on this topic warrants further examination of factors related to fad diets use and the spread among interpersonal networks.

The phantom steering effect in Q&A websites

Virtual rewards, such as badges, are commonly used in online platforms as incentives for promoting contributions from a userbase. It is widely accepted that such rewards “steer” people’s behaviour towards increasing their rate of contributions before obtaining the reward. This paper provides a new probabilistic model of user behaviour in the presence of threshold rewards, such a badges. We find, surprisingly, that while steering does affect a minority of the population, the majority of users do not change their behaviour around the achievement of these virtual rewards. In particular, we find that only approximately 5–30% of Stack Overflow users who achieve the rewards appear to respond to the incentives. This result is based on the analysis of thousands of users’ activity patterns before and after they achieve the reward. Our conclusion is that the phenomenon of steering is less common than has previously been claimed. We identify a statistical phenomenon, termed “Phantom Steering”, that can account for the interaction data of the users who do not respond to the reward. The presence of phantom steering may have contributed to some previous conclusions about the ubiquity of steering. We conduct a qualitative survey of the users on Stack Overflow which supports our results, suggesting that the motivating factors behind user behaviour are complex, and that some of the online incentives used in Stack Overflow may not be solely responsible for changes in users’ contribution rates.

Motivating factors associated with oral pre-exposure prophylaxis use among female sex workers in South Africa

To explore the motivating factors that encourage female sex workers to take oral PrEP, despite the challenges that come with adherence. The 39 participants in this study consisted of female sex workers, peer educators, a counselor, and a researcher. Participants took PrEP as an expression of self-love. Some participants described PrEP as empowering because they could independently prevent HIV. They were also motivated by parenting, hope and future aspirations. It is important for future PrEP interventions to incorporate behavioral strategies that appeal to the user’s personal and deeper motivations for living.

Analysing the Obstacles in Agile Software Development Approach: A Review

The development of reusable and extensible software for business purposes has been the hallmark of the day. More developers are taking advantage of numerous approaches towards reaching their goals. One such approach is the agile approach in the development of extensible applications which has become so popular since its introduction over a decade ago. Using an agile approach that has a defined value in developing applications portray numerous benefits which have been identified by various scholars pointing out their outcomes as motivating factors of its adoption. With all such outline benefits, there exist some potential obstacles to agile developmental approach which has not been fully addressed. Hence, this article is aimed at analysing the obstacles which software developers face during agile development through a database search and also to guide them on ways to overcome such obstacles.

Employee Motivation for Training and Development

Training and development is an important function of human resource management. Employees need to regularly undergo training and development programmes to update themselves with the latest technologies and skills, which help to increase the efficiency of the organization. Motivating employees to undergo a training programme is often a challenge faced by employees. This study aims to find the motivating factors for employees to undertake a training and development programme. With a sample size of 172 employees from a leading pharmaceutical company in Sikkim, India, responses were collected and analysed. It was found that interest for updating oneself with the latest technology, better chance of career exploration, commitment to train from the company's end, and encouragement provided from subordinates play significant roles in motivating employees in undertaking a training and development programmes.

Using Gamification Strategies to Cultivate and Measure Professional Educator Dispositions

One of the most important outcomes of pre-service teacher education is the transition from assignment-oriented students to service-oriented education professionals. Faculty can assist in this process by cultivating professional educator dispositions within their courses. Gamification strategies can be an effective way to provide students with timely feedback regarding their progress toward professional educator dispositions. This study investigated the effectiveness of points, timely feedback, and leaderboards on cultivating and measuring specific professional educator dispositions among pre-service teachers. Data was collected in four domains - personal responsibility, intellectual engagement, professional ethics and stewardship, and supportive interactions- where gamification strategies were additively implemented over five semesters. Results from this study indicate gamification strategies, when bundled together to leverage motivating factors such as competition and personalization led to increased gains in the four domains of professional educator dispositions.

Exploring the Educational Potential of a Game-Based Math Competition

The main aim of this article was to investigate the educational potential of a game-based math game competition to engage students in training rational numbers. Finnish fourth (n = 59; Mage = 10.36) and sixth graders (n = 105; Mage = 12.34) participated in a math game competition relying on intra-classroom cooperation and inter-classroom competition. During a three-week period, the students were allowed to play a digital rational number game, which is founded on number line estimation task mechanics. The results indicated that students benefited significantly from participating in the competition and playing behaviour could be used to assess students rational number knowledge. Moreover, students were engaged in the competition and the results revealed that intrinsically motivating factors such as enjoyment and perceived learning gains predicted students' willingness to participate in math game competitions again. This article provides empirical support that educational game competition can be an effective, engaging, and a fair instructional approach.

Why Students Prefer “Business Administration Education”?

This chapter aims to identify the factors that are effective in the decisions of business students to choose this department. For this purpose, motivating factors for personality and work life were preferred in the study and questions were prepared in this direction. A and B type personality structures were preferred for the personality factor. The motivating factors for business life examined under three headings as occupational prestige/status, earning potential, potential of occupational advancement. The sample of the research consists of the senior year undergraduate students in the Department of the Business Administration from different universities. Data were collected through a semi-structured interview technique. In the research, a total of 25 students were interviewed on an online platform. In the results of the research, personality type tendencies of the students were revealed, and it was observed that factors such as prestigious job, status, high income, career progression, family, and personality influence their preferences of the business administration department.