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1 – 10 of over 6000Nitin Bhaurao Raut and Gweneth Gorman
The interruption of on-campus teaching and learning, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forced universities around the globe to rethink their pedagogical models and adopt innovative…
Abstract
Purpose
The interruption of on-campus teaching and learning, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forced universities around the globe to rethink their pedagogical models and adopt innovative strategies and approaches that enabled continuity of learning. Engineering schools and faculties were faced with the challenge of how to continue to engage students with the practical component of coursework, especially in terms of lab work and experimentation, which are mandatory requirements for degree awards.
Design/methodology/approach
This study documents how the Faculty of Engineering in a university in Oman engaged students with the practical component of their course during the pandemic by launching the remote DoIt@Home Lab. The DoIt@Home Lab approach included the design and development of video recorded labs, virtual labs, simulation exercises and DoIt@Home experiments which were provided to students as teaching tools and guides to conducting home experiments remotely.
Findings
This study presents the DoIt@Home Lab approach introduced to Year 2 Chemistry for engineering students. Students' grades improved by 11% over the previous year when the course was delivered face-to-face. Failure rates dropped by 8% while the number of students earning a 3.25 grade point average (GPA) or higher increased by 18%.
Originality/value
The DoIt@Home Lab for engineering courses could enhance students' learning experience and create an effective remote learning environment. While the DoIt@Home Lab was created to supplement on-campus activity in the event of a temporary disruption, it can also be used to supplement regular face-to-face program delivery.
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Dominik Jung, Marc Adam, Verena Dorner and Anuja Hariharan
Human lab experiments have become an established method in information systems research for investigating user behavior, perception and even neurophysiology. The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Human lab experiments have become an established method in information systems research for investigating user behavior, perception and even neurophysiology. The purpose of this paper is to facilitate experimental research by providing a practical guide on how to implement and conduct lab experiments in the freely available experimental platform Brownie.
Design/methodology/approach
Laying the groundwork of the tutorial, the paper first provides a brief overview of common design considerations for lab experiments and a generic session framework. Building on the use case of the widely used trust game, the paper then covers the different stages involved in running an experimental session and maps the conceptual elements of the study design to the implementation of the experimental software.
Findings
The paper generates findings on how computerized lab experiments can be designed and implemented. Furthermore, it maps out the design considerations an experimenter may take into account when implementing an experiment and organizing it along a session structure (e.g. participant instructions, individual and group interaction, state and trait questionnaires).
Originality/value
The paper reduces barriers for researchers to engage in experiment implementation and replication by providing a step-by-step tutorial for the design and implementation of human lab experiments.
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Kung Wong Lau, Chi Wai Kan and Pui Yuen Lee
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of stereoscopic virtual technology in textile and fashion studies in particular to the area of chemical experiment. The development…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of stereoscopic virtual technology in textile and fashion studies in particular to the area of chemical experiment. The development of a designed virtual platform, called Stereoscopic Chemical Laboratory (SCL), is introduced.
Design/methodology/approach
To implement the suggested educational approaches of SCL, a set of teaching and learning materials with emphasis on the application methods was revised from the existing subjects. The architecture of SCL includes building of virtual objects with the Autodesk software Maya and designing of interactivity by using Unity, a game engine system. Prototype version of the SCL has been passed to selected academic colleagues and students for further evaluation and application feedback.
Findings
Textile students can conduct laboratory experiments associated with coloration and finishing of textile technologies in a stereoscopic 3D and multisensory laboratory, and hence enhance their learning experience. With the use of SCL, students can learn relevant experiment tools, experimental processes, procedures, and safety and health precautions.
Originality/value
There is very limited educational or training approach in applying stereoscopic virtual reality in teaching activities. In the area of textile experiment, the authors could say it is virtual and does not exist in current research domains.
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How can laboratory experiments help us understand banking crises, including the usefulness of various policy responses? After giving a concise introduction to the field of…
Abstract
Purpose
How can laboratory experiments help us understand banking crises, including the usefulness of various policy responses? After giving a concise introduction to the field of experimental economics more generally, the author attempts to provide answers. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The author discusses methodology and surveys relevant work.
Findings
History is often too complicated to be meaningfully revamped or modified in the lab, for purposes of insight-by-analogy. But as people argue about how to understand financial history, they bring ideas to the table. It is possible and useful to test the empirical relevance of these ideas in lab experiments.
Originality/value
The paper pioneers broad discussion of how lab experiments may shed light on banking crises.
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Suresh Malodia, Amandeep Dhir, Muhammad Junaid Shahid Hasni and Shalini Srivastava
The purpose of this study is to present a systematic methodological review of the application of field experiments in the domain of marketing research. By performing this study…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to present a systematic methodological review of the application of field experiments in the domain of marketing research. By performing this study, the authors seek to offer necessary advice and suggestions to marketing scholars interested in the application of field experiments and to promote the adoption of field experiments as a preferred methodological choice among scholars in this domain.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 315 field experiments published in the ten leading marketing journals in the past five decades were analyzed in this systematic methodological review. This study examines various aspects of field experiments, including the research profile of existing research, different trends and topics related to field experiments, choice of research questions, methods of observations, unobtrusive data collection, types of interventions and outcome variables.
Findings
This study identified various trends and topics, categories of manipulations, types of limitations and important considerations in designing field experiments and offered necessary advice on the future of field experiments in marketing research.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides a complete roadmap for future marketing scholars to adopt field studies in their research plans. The systematic summary of limitations and the checklist will be helpful for the researchers to design and execute field studies more effectively and efficiently.
Practical implications
This review study offers a complete roadmap for marketing scholars who are interested in adopting field experiments in their research projects. The discussion of trends and topics, manipulations, limitations, design considerations and checklist items for field experiments offers relevant insights to marketing scholars and may help them design and execute field experiments more effectively and efficiently.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to provide a comprehensive methodological review of field experiments published in leading marketing journals throughout the past five decades. This study makes novel and unique contributions to both theory and literature on field experiments in the marketing discipline.
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Kumar S. Ray and Piyali Chatterjee
The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative approach to approximate reasoning by DNA computing, thereby adding a new dimension to the existing approximate reasoning…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative approach to approximate reasoning by DNA computing, thereby adding a new dimension to the existing approximate reasoning method by bringing it down to nanoscale computing. The logical aspect of approximate reasoning is replaced by DNA chemistry.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve this goal, first the synthetic DNA sequence fuzzified by quantum dot, which is a recent advancement of nanotechnology. Thus with the help of fuzzy DNA, which holds the vague concept of human reasoning, the basic method of approximate reasoning on a DNA chip is realized. This approach avoids the tedious choice of a suitable implication operator (for a particular application) necessary for existing approximate reasoning based on fuzzy logic. The inferred consequences obtained from DNA computing‐based approximate reasoning is ultimately hybridized with appropriate complementary sequence probed on a DNA‐chip to confirm the result of inference.
Findings
The present approach is suitable for reasoning under vague and uncertain environment and does not require any subject choice of any individual expert, which is essential for existing approximate reasoning method.
Originality/value
This new tool for approximate reasoning based on DNA computing is applicable to several problems of science and engineering; namely pattern classification, control theory, weather forecasting, atmospheric science, etc.
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Saiedeh N. Razavi, Ali Montaser and Osama Moselhi
Location awareness is essential to decisions pertinent to tracking and progress reporting, as well as to safety in construction projects. However, these applications have been…
Abstract
Purpose
Location awareness is essential to decisions pertinent to tracking and progress reporting, as well as to safety in construction projects. However, these applications have been mostly limited to the outdoor environment, where satellites for positioning information are in view. Recent studies on indoor location sensing systems are now overcoming this limitation and offering significant potential on construction practices, and radio frequency identification (RFID) is the most widely utilised technology for such application. The purpose of this paper is to address a wide range of protocols that are vital for RFID deployment for indoor construction. The paper identifies deployment settings to provide data acquisition with higher accuracy for indoor location sensing in construction.
Design/methodology/approach
A computational platform was designed to assess and evaluate the most suitable condition related to deployment of reference tags in construction. In this platform, a number of protocols and parameters are presented and their performance is evaluated. The evaluation scenarios were performed on a construction facility in Montreal, as well as in a controlled lab environment. The computational platform used for the study comprises the use of passive reference RFID tags and K Nearest Neighbour algorithm (K‐NN) for course‐grained detection of target's location and its classification into pre‐defined zone areas.
Findings
The studies resulted in a number of observations, findings, and lessons learned for RFID deployment in construction. The results indicate that: the speed of the reader is in direct relationship with the detection error rate; zone configuration effectiveness is in direct relationship with the deployed RFID read‐range; error rate on the controlled environment is significantly lower than rates in construction site; and stationary reader performs better than moving reader.
Originality/value
The paper's findings are expected to be of considerable value to researchers and practitioners involved in the utilisation of RFID technology in construction. The paper provides a set of helpful protocols for the deployment of passive RFIDs for automated onsite management of construction operations.
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Sascha Kraus, Fabian Meier and Thomas Niemand
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the emerging field of experimental research on entrepreneurship to better understand its development and potential.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the emerging field of experimental research on entrepreneurship to better understand its development and potential.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic, evidence-based literature review was applied, resulting in a sample of 47 articles having used experiments in entrepreneurship research so far. The papers are analyzed according to their topic, methods, and research design, revealing insight into their limitations and prospective contributions.
Findings
The paper discusses the potential and disadvantages of experimental methods while arguing for experiments as the method of choice for answering causality questions. This study finds a persistent increase in experimental entrepreneurship research since its introduction in 1990.
Research limitations/implications
The study provides research from the field of entrepreneurship with future directions, with potential research areas and an orientation for those interested in conducting experiments.
Originality/value
Experiments are employed in a variety of research areas and have become more and more popular in the field of entrepreneurship. No study has analyzed the experimental studies in entrepreneurship. This paper contributes by providing an overview of the field, reflecting and discussing the outcomes while characterizing the methods employed.
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Yuli Zhang and Chen Wang
Marketing persuasive materials are often displayed on a curved surface (e.g. a curved hallway). This study aims to investigate how the curvature (concave vs convex) of a display…
Abstract
Purpose
Marketing persuasive materials are often displayed on a curved surface (e.g. a curved hallway). This study aims to investigate how the curvature (concave vs convex) of a display surface influences the persuasion of the marketing appeals presented on it.
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual framework was tested in a field experiment, a lab experiment and two online experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Analyses of variance and mediation analysis were used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
This research demonstrates that a concave (vs convex) display surface may increase persuasion for marketing materials with social appeals. This occurs because a concave surface enhances consumers’ perception of self–other overlap, which is matched with the content of the social appeal presented on it, thereby enhancing the appeal’s persuasiveness. It further identifies the appeal content as an important moderator of the effect; a convex (vs concave) display would enhance persuasion when the marketing materials contain personal appeals.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could investigate how a time delay (e.g. hours, days) and the curvature of a display board or wall would play a role in the effect of display curvature.
Practical implications
The findings offer a novel, simple and cost-effective approach to enhance persuasion for both nonprofit and for-profit marketing materials.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the persuasion literature by investigating the impact of one ubiquitous but overlooked aspect of the message setting (i.e. the curvature of the message’s display surface) on persuasion while holding the message source and content constant. It also advances knowledge on consumer shape perception by examining an underexplored shape (i.e. the curved shape of a display surface) that is nondiagnostic in message persuasion.
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Without having a shared operationalization of what constitutes a direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) exposure, it is impossible to accurately generalize findings about their…
Abstract
Purpose
Without having a shared operationalization of what constitutes a direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) exposure, it is impossible to accurately generalize findings about their effects. First, it needs to be established how the variables involved in exposures impact outcomes. This will allow for more accurate operationalizations.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 216 participants were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and randomly assigned into one of four conditions to take an online survey. A 2 × 2 experiment (active/passive attention × low/high exposure) was conducted to determine if the level of attention, otherwise known as attentiveness, and the number of exposures impacted preferences for a fictitious prescription sleep aid.
Findings
Results indicated a significant difference among active and passive conditions such that active exposures resulted in stronger positive preferences.
Research limitations/implications
Studies using different operationalizations should not be aggregated for generalizations about the effects of DTCA of prescription drugs.
Originality/value
This paper urges researchers to clearly operationalize their definitions for “exposure” and to be hesitant about generalizing findings studies using different definitions.
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