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Over the past decade, gamification’s popularity has broadened into many industries and has become embedded in consumers’ lives. As privacy protection and how firms utilize users’ data has been at the forefront of consumers’ minds, practitioners and academics alike need to understand consumers’ perceptions of the ethics of gamification. This paper aims to explore and provide preliminary evidence on young consumers’ perceptions of gamification and the ethics involved in these strategies used by firms.

The authors conducted two studies using a mixed-methods approach to gain a foundational understanding of young consumers’ perceptions of gamification. In Study 1, interviews provided initial insights and helped inform an exploratory survey administered in Study 2 to 161 young consumers attending a university in the southwest region of the USA.

The findings indicate that consumers have positive attitudes toward gamification tactics as long as the rewards are sufficient. Further, consumers do not find gamification as unethical as long as they have control over having the ability to opt-in.

Previous research has examined gamification from several contexts including health care, education and the workplace. However, there is little research that focuses on gamification from the consumers’ perspective, specifically the young consumer. As more firms are using gamification tactics such as on their mobile applications, it is critical to understand how young consumers perceive gamification and how that can impact the consumer-brand relationship. This research offers two studies as a first step in investigating young consumers’ perceptions of gamification tactics firms use and offers several future directions.

Promoting sustainable behavior is an elusive task as it is not an innate and natural response of individuals. While a conducive environment that promotes sustainability arguably plays a prominent role in influencing individuals’ belief structure and norms, not much has been done to examine the interplay between environmental, personal and behavioral domains in sustainable consumption. Drawing on the theoretical perspectives of the social cognitive theory (SCT) and value–beliefs–norms (VBN), this study aims to contribute to the literature by proposing an integrated framework that examines sustainable consumption.

This study uses a partial least squares structural equation modeling model based on 313 young consumer responses from an eco-friendly institution in Malaysia.

The findings from this study advance sustainable literature by establishing the multidimensionality concept of the personal domain of SCT. Interestingly, an enabling environment that promotes sustainability was found to be more influential in determining young consumers’ beliefs and norms, as opposed to their competencies. This is demonstrated by the sequential mediation of attribution of responsibility and personal norms on the relationship between campus advertisements and pro-environmental behaviors.

Previous research has investigated SCT and VBN as two separate streams of research in examining green behaviors. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that integrates SCT and VBN by examining the multidimensionality aspect of the personal construct to provide a more holistic perspective of examining sustainable behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine students’ perceptions of online vs traditional (face-to-face) course offerings at the business school of a liberal arts university in southwest USA. The research compares perceptions of students who have been subjected to online education along with those who have not been exposed to online education and examines likelihood to take online courses.

Paper and pencil surveys were distributed in different classes in business classes at a university in southwest USA. The target group was undergraduate students.

The results indicate that overall, students have neutral perceptions about online courses, while favorable perceptions are strongly associated with likelihood to take online courses. Moreover, prior exposure with online courses is not a significant factor in forming favorable perceptions about online courses.

The present research is limited in generalizability and the institution surveyed in the southwest region is new to online courses offering in their curriculum and not all the participants had prior experience with online courses.

Although this paper compares online education with traditional, another option for methods of education include hybrid models incorporating both. A possible third option not discussed through this research is a hybrid or blended learning course, a combination of both online and traditional courses. This opens the options for the student, as hybrid courses can be built with many different options. One includes using technology for “screencasts” or lectures online.

To provide insight into young people’s attitudes toward community, place, and public discourse on youth and the environment, and to constructively situate the concept of “a sense of place” within these insights for critical pedagogy and community development.

This project utilizes a grounded theory approach to identify salient themes in young people’s expressions of place relationships through poetry. About 677 poems about “local watersheds” written by youth aged 5–18 for the River of Words Poetry Contest between 1996 and 2009 are analyzed using poetic and content analysis.

Findings include the importance of place experiences that employ risk-taking and play, engage central family relationships, and provide access to historical and political narratives of place for the development of constructive place relationships. We also present findings regarding emotions in the sample, showing changing levels of hope and idealism, sadness, pessimism, and other emotions as expressed in the poems.

Using poetic analysis to study attitudes, values, and feelings is a promising method for learning more about the perceptions and values of individuals that affect their self-efficacy and agency.

Engaging youth as active participants and empathetic knowledge-creators in their own places offers one opportunity for critical reflective development in order to combat and reframe disempowering public discourses about young people and their relationships to nature and community. Educators can use this research to adapt contextually and emotionally rooted methods of place-based learning with their students.

The paper uses a nontraditional, mixed methods approach to research and a unique body of affective data. It makes a strong argument for reflective, experiential, and critical approaches to learning about nature and society issues in local contexts.

Attitudes and beliefs towards marriage and family held by Chinese and American college students were compared in this study. The primary dimensions included whether to marry, age to marry, number of desired children, age to have children, perceptions of divorce, willingness to cohabit, openness to blended marriages, and gender roles within marriage. If a global convergence of cultures is occurring, then similarities should be found throughout the views of all respondents towards the institution of marriage. Dissimilarities in views could be interpreted as evidence of the entrenchment and uniqueness of culture, an outcome advanced by those who question cultural homogenisation. Hundreds of college students in several large universities in China and one regional university in the United States were surveyed at convenience. The Chinese students were found to prefer marrying and to plan having children a year later in age compared to the Americans. They also desired having nearly one fewer total number of children on average compared to the Americans. Surprisingly, the Chinese were more agreeable with divorce. The Americans were more likely to support gender equality within marriage and to accept blended types of marriage. Both groups equally approved of the overall idea of couples cohabiting if they plan on marrying. However, the Americans were far more willing to say that they themselves would cohabit. Visions of the benefits of married life were similar across countries. Overall, far more significant differences were found than no differences. The results suggest that elements of marriage norms in the world’s largest economies are somewhat constrained by social forces in their ability to completely converge.

This chapter describes the curriculum for one nine-week unit called “The United States of America and Native America.” This unit was part of a two-year course for students in grades 11 and 12 at a small, independent school in the Southwest. The school began as a US government–sponsored boarding school in the nineteenth century, tasked with assimilating Indigenous children into white US culture. Over the past century the school's mission has evolved significantly. During the nineteenth century, efforts were made to locate and recruit students in far-flung rural (mostly Hispanic) communities in New Mexico without access to a local high school. This effort has since expanded to offering a college preparatory education to local populations, who are less likely to enjoy private school or college educations, and to international students. This chapter gathers research about “decolonizing education” (Brayboy & Lomawaima, 2018; Jacob, 2018; Fryberg & Markus, 2007; and Deyhle & Swisher, 1997; Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014) and considers the extent to which the curriculum is effective for students who identify as Indigenous.

Silver has been known to mankind from time immemorial. It was one of the prized possessions of kings and nobles. From earliest times, it has been known for its intimate association with (i) monetary system, (ii) use as a silverware for household purposes and (iii) beauty and elegance when shaped into ornaments. Now, an increased understanding of the properties of silver results in its application in the rapidly developing technologies, namely communications, electronics, space explorations, etc.

LIBRARIANS in Britain stand at the threshold of great possibilities. Having passed through the ages of the ecclesiastical library, the rich collector's private library, the academic institutional library, and the rate‐supported public library—all general libraries —they have reached the age of the special library. The next will be that of the co‐ordinated, co‐operative library service.

Various studies suggest that some of natural agents create a specific action of hypocholesterolemic effect. Considering this fact, the aim of this paper is to work on describing selected natural agents that may reduce cholesterol concentrations by different mechanism of actions.

The advantages, phytochemical components and the mechanisms of the agents were reviewed and supported from the findings of the in vitro, double-blind and clinical studies from published journals, books and articles. The journals used in this review were published between 1987 and 2016, and are available from PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar.

Plant stanols and sterols, turmeric, fenugreek, avocado, tomato, artichoke, red yeast rice and garlic showed a positive effect in maintaining cholesterol levels by specific mechanisms or actions. These agents each had a specific action in creating a hypocholesterolemic effect either by inhibition of the enzyme significant to the synthesis process, disturbing the absorption of cholesterol, conversion of cholesterol to other related forms and through the reduction of the oxidative stress.

However, this field still needs more studies as, currently, there is not any detailed information regarding the main active ingredients responsible for the mechanism to reduce cholesterol levels in humans.

This paper enlightens the authors’ understanding of some natural agents that have the potential to be used in controlling cholesterol.