Further validation of the engagement questionnaire (EQ): Do immersive technologies actually increase consumer engagement during wine evaluations?

Abstract

The use of immersive technologies allows for the addition of contextually relevant information into the, otherwise, sterile laboratory experience. The addition of context has been hypothesized to yield improved sample discriminability, in part, due to enhanced involvement or engagement of the panelist. A questionnaire was recently developed to characterize consumer engagement during sensory and consumer testing. The main factors contributing to engagement were active involvement, purposeful intent and affective value. The objective of this study was to further validate the temporal reliability of the engagement questionnaire (EQ) and evaluate how subject engagement changes when assessing red wines in a traditional, immersive, and actual environment. After evaluating the wines in each environment, participants (N = 62) rated their level of agreement on a 10-item questionnaire (EQ) that measured overall levels of engagement with a task. Participants were less actively involved in the wine evaluation (F2,122 = 14.672; p < 0.001) and found less affective value in the task as they progressed through the weeks regardless of which environment they were in (F2,122 = 3.819; p = 0.025). Overall, there were significant correlations of the factor averages across the three weeks (p < 0.05), suggesting the way subjects interpreted and responded to each factor was temporally consistent. When evaluating subject engagement across the environments, subjects were more actively involved in the task when in the traditional environment (F2,122 = 3.635; p = 0.029). However, subjects rated increased levels of affective value when in the actual environment (F2,122 = 6.055; p = 0.003). Consistently, subjects reported a similar level of purpose and intent in the evaluation across all three weeks (F2,122 = 0.424; p = 0.656) and all three environments (F2,122 = 0.245; p = 0.783) suggesting they understood the importance of the test in all three conditions. More work needs to continue to ensure that we understand the panelists’ experience during testing and how context might influence their level of engagement.