Citizen Science in Schools: Predictors and Outcomes of Participating in Voluntary Political Research

Citizen science research has been rapidly expanding in the past years and has become a popular approach in youth education. We investigated key drivers of youth participation in a citizen social science school project and the effects of participation on scientific and topic-related (i.e., political) interest and efficacy. Findings suggest that females, more politically and scientifically interested and more scientifically efficacious adolescents were more motivated to learn from the project. Science efficacy was also positively related to external reward motivation (i.e., winning an award). Both learning and external reward motivation increased the likelihood of participation. Pre- and post-measurement further indicated that participation in the project slightly increased science interest, but not science efficacy. However, it did increase both political interest and efficacy. Furthermore, our data revealed a decrease in science efficacy and interest in those who did not participate in the project, indicating an increasing gap in adolescents’ scientific involvement.

The Influence of Gamification and Platform Affordances on User Engagement in Online Learning

Gamification becomes an important and widely used instrument in online learning, and it affects users' experience. However, recent research on the interaction between a user and technology, in the online learning platform, tends to study gamification separately. This paper aims to overcome the research gap, exploring the relationships between user engagement, platform affordances, and gamification in online learning. An online survey was conducted among the participants (N=375) studying with Skyeng (commercial online platform for learning English). The data was analysed with factor and regression analysis. The results demonstrated four major platform affordances: technology credibility and usability, adaptability of course tasks, phasing and intermittence and external reward. Among the four, technology credibility and usability was found to be the most influential predictor of user engagement in online learning. External reward, as an affordance, drawn from gamification elements, has the smallest contribution to user engagement. However, the study proves the suitability of perceiving gamified elements as affordances by platform users. The research provides conceptual and empirical grounds for studying gamification elements as one of the affordances in online learning and outlines further directions to explore these connections.

Research on the Relationship of the Organization Capacity and Job Satisfaction in Nursing Homes

Objective: To explore the occurrence of organization capacity and to examine the relationships among the organization capacity and job satisfaction in nursing homes in China. Methods: A total of 577 participants in sixteen nursing homes in Hunan province of China were enrolled using a cluster randomized controlled trial. Staff job satisfaction was measured by Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire(MSQ) in short form, nursing homes’ organization capacity was assessed by Shortell’s Organization and Management Survey. One-way analysis of variance examined differences between variables. The relationship and correlation of organization capability, MSQ total score and scores in each dimension was analyzed. Results: Overall score of nursing homes’ organization capacity was 99.5±8.6(level ranking, 21–105), and MSQ score was 78.2±8.2 (level ranking, 20–100). Staff job satisfaction levels were significantly different among nursing staffs with different levels of organization capability (F=9.40, P＜0.001). Correlation analysis showed that organization capability level was positively correlated with staff job satisfaction (r=0.52, P< 0.001). And Correlation analysis showed that Working conditions (r = 0.46, P < 0.001), Leaders (r = 0.46, P < 0.001), Responsibility (r = 0.51, P < 0.001) and External reward (r= 0.42, P < 0.001) were positively associated with organization capability. Conclusion: The organization capability can be improved by active staff job satisfaction. But the job satisfaction of nursing staffs was at a moderate level. Thus effective measures such as creating a supportive work conditions, appointing suitable leaders, enhancing responsibilities and providing external reward should be considered by nursing managers to promote organization capability in nursing homes.

The growth and form of knowledge networks by kinesthetic curiosity

Throughout life, we might seek a calling, companions, skills, entertainment, truth, self-knowledge, beauty, and edification. The practice of curiosity can be viewed as an extended and open-ended search for valuable information with hidden identity and location in a complex space of interconnected information. Despite its importance, curiosity has been challenging to computationally model because the practice of curiosity often flourishes without specific goals, external reward, or immediate feedback. Here, we show how network science, statistical physics, and philosophy can be integrated into an approach that coheres with and expands the psychological taxonomies of specific-diversive and perceptual-epistemic curiosity. Using this interdisciplinary approach, we distill functional modes of curious information seeking as searching movements in information space. The kinesthetic model of curiosity offers a vibrant counterpart to the deliberative predictions of model-based reinforcement learning. In doing so, this model unearths new computational opportunities for identifying what makes curiosity curious.

Customer engagement and co-created value in social media

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between customer participation, co-created value and customer engagement as well as customer motivation involved in this process. Design/methodology/approach Respondents were randomly exposed to one of the six types of social media scenarios. A total of 181 respondents were drawn from an MTurk opt-in survey panel of individuals who resided in America and were over the age of 18 years. Findings Overall, the results of this study showed that as the level of customer participation increased, the level of co-created value decreased. The relationship between customer participation and customer engagement was fully mediated by co-created value. Extrinsic motivation was found to moderate the relationship between customer participation and co-created value but did not moderate the relationship between customer participation and customer engagement. Moreover, customer engagement was at its highest when an external reward was not offered, in other words, when customers were intrinsically motivated. Furthermore, when an external reward was offered, a significant effect of privacy concern on customer engagement was observed. Originality/value The study extends the current understanding of customer engagement through value co-creation, customer participation and perceptions of privacy in firm-initiated activities in social media.

Where does value come from?

The computational framework of reinforcement learning (RL) has allowed us to both understand biological brains and build successful artificial agents. However, in this article we highlight open challenges for RL as a model of animal behaviour in natural environments. We ask how the external reward function is designed for biological systems, and how we can account for the context sensitivity of valuation. We argue that rather than optimizing receipt of external reward signals, animals track current and desired internal states and seek to minimise the distance to goal across multiple value dimensions. Our framework can readily account for canonical phenomena observed in the fields of psychology, behavioural ecology, and economics, and recent findings from brain imaging studies of value-guided decision-making.

Total Commitment

This chapter explores the strategies used in finance-dominated capitalism to ensure worker compliance with company demands, using mechanisms of fear, hope of external reward, self-evacuation, and the convergence of employee desires with that of the company. It will contrast these strategies, point by point, with the way in which commitment to God is related to more mundane commitments. Attention is drawn to the way Christian commitment imitates at a critical remove the enterprise self of contemporary capitalism.

Evaluation of the Efficacy of Psychological Interventions in Promoting Preparedness to Armed Conflicts – A Randomized Controlled Study

ABSTRACTObjectiveDespite efforts by civil defense authorities, levels of households’ preparedness to emergencies remain insufficient in many countries. Engaging the public in preparedness behavior is a challenge worldwide. The purpose of this study was to explore the efficacy of psychological intervention in promoting preparedness behavior to armed conflicts in Israel.MethodsA randomized controlled trial (N = 381) with two control groups and three intervention groups was used. The psychological interventions studied were elevated threat perception, external reward, and manipulation of a cognitive cluster related to preparedness.ResultsThe results of the analysis suggest a significant effect of intervention on the increase of reported preparedness (F4,375 = 4.511, P = 0.001). The effect is attributed to the intervention group in which external reward was offered. Participants in this group were about two times more likely to report greater levels of preparedness compared to the control group (RR = 1.855; 95% CI: 1.065, 3.233).ConclusionsThe findings suggest that preparedness behavior can be promoted through external incentives. These are presumably effective motivators because they encourage preparedness while allowing subjects to retain their denial as an adaptive coping mechanism. Innovative thinking is required to overcome the psychological barriers associated with public reluctance to engage in preparedness. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;13:713–723)

The Aesthetic Animal

The Aesthetic Animal answers the ultimate questions of why we adorn ourselves; embellish our things and surroundings; and produce art, music, song, dance, and fiction. Humans are aesthetic animals that spend vast amounts of time and resources on seemingly useless aesthetic activities. However, nature would not allow a species to waste precious time and effort on activities completely unrelated to the survival, reproduction, and well-being of that species. Consequently, the aesthetic impulse must have some important biological functions. An impulse is a natural, internal behavioral incentive that does not need external reward to exist. A number of observations indicate that the aesthetic impulse is exactly such an inherent part of human nature, and therefore it is a primary impulse in its own right with several important functions. The aesthetic impulse may guide us toward what is biologically good for us and help us choose the right fitness-enhancing items in our surroundings. It is a valid individual fitness indicator, as well as a unifying social group marker, and aesthetically skilled individuals get more mating possibilities, higher status, and more collaborative offers. This book is written in a lively and entertaining tone, and it presents an original and comprehensive synthesis of the empirical field, synthesizing data from archeology, cave art, anthropology, biology, ethology, and experimental and evolutionary psychology and neuro-aesthetics.