Behavioral Online Research Articles

Self-Perceived vs. Actual Online Engagement: Relationships with Academic Achievement Among Chinese Undergraduate English Learners in a Blended Learning Environment

This study, motivated by the growing integration of digital platforms in higher education, explores the relationships between Chinese undergraduate English learners' online engagement and academic achievement in a blended learning environment. Adopting a quantitative research design, the study involved 138 participants enrolled in an advanced English writing course, delivered through a blended learning approach. Data were collected using an adapted version of the Online Engagement Scale (OES) survey, assessing four constructs: Behavioral Engagement (BE), Cognitive Engagement (CE), Emotional Engagement (EE), and Social Engagement (SE). The study found that learners perceived higher levels of BE and CE compared to EE and SE. Analysis of actual behavioral online engagement revealed significant time spent on tasks, high task completion rates, and strong task performance. Significant correlations were found between BE and CE with total engagement time (TET) and task completion rates (TCR), while EE showed a correlation only with TET. SE did not correlate with any dimension of actual engagement. Despite these correlations, only task engagement scores (TES) significantly predicted academic achievement, with BE, CE, EE, and SE not predicting academic success. These findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of engagement in blended learning contexts, emphasizing that fostering task engagement, particularly task completion and performance, may enhance academic outcomes in such environments.

STUDENTS AND FACULTY LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS OF DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP IN DISTANCE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

COVID-19 pandemic has changed the education landscape and increased the acceptance and adoption of distance educations by both individuals and academic institutions. The rise in e-learning and distance education and the increased access to the Internet and learning technology, it becomes critical that provide positive, safe, legal, and ethical behavioural online. While COVID 19 acerated the use and adoption of online learning, it also highlighted the importance of fostering effective digital citizenship given the level of misinformation and conspiracy theories generated spread on the Internet and social media about the pandemic. In this study, the researcher examined the students and faculty perception of digital citizenship practices in distance learning environments at Al-Quds Open University. The study used a mix method approach with 8 faculty participating in the qualitative interview and 559 students participating in the quantitative survey. The study's findings revealed that while students and teachers were aware of digital citizenship principles, they lacked in-depth understanding and knowledge of topics like digital rights, digital security, and digital ethics. Faculty and students both believed that digital citizenship is vital and required for protecting students' privacy and cultivating ethical technology use. Students and faculty both agreed on the importance of incorporating digital citizenship skills like digital rights, digital security, and digital ethics within e-learning curricula.

COVID-19 and the Perceived Dangerousness of Everyday Objects: A Behavioural Online Study in Italy and Germany

The outbreak of COVID-19 and efforts to contain it have likely impacted our daily lives, including how we interact with objects. This online study aimed to develop and test a task to measure how different contexts affect our perception of objects, particularly those that were regarded as potentially dangerous. Two pre-registered experiments conducted in Italy and Germany showed how linguistically processed affordances (e.g., nouns) referring to objects perceived as dangerous (such as a door handle during the pandemic) were processed differently than those referring to neutral objects (like a toothbrush) in a sensibility judgement task. This effect was observed across different contexts and in both experiments. Further research is needed to determine if this effect is similar to the processing of negative words, and if it differs between objects with immanent negative properties (like a broken glass or a fire) versus those with potentially negative properties that only emerge in certain contexts. Replications of the study may clarify if the effect was temporary or produced more permanent changes in behaviour.

Value-modulated attentional capture in reward and punishment contexts, attentional control, and their relationship with psychopathology

Attentional bias towards rewards has been extensively studied in both healthy and clinical populations. Several studies have shown an association between reward value-modulated attentional capture (VMAC) and greater substance use. However, less is known about the association between these VMAC effects and internalizing symptoms. Moreover, while VMAC effects have also been found in punishment contexts, the association between punishment VMAC and psychopathology has not been studied so far. In the present two-part preregistered study, we adapted a novel VMAC task to also include a punishment context and examined associations with internalizing symptoms and substance use. Our results showed consistent VMAC effects in reward contexts across two separate studies. Attentional capture was stronger for distractors associated with high rewards than for low rewards. We replicated and extended previous findings by showing such VMAC effects in a substantially shorter task that also included alternating punishment blocks. Contrary to our expectations, we found no VMAC effects in punishment contexts and no direct associations between VMAC and symptom measures. Our results speak to the feasibility of assessing VMAC effects using a scalable and short behavioral online task, but the relationship with the development of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology remains uncertain.

Movement characteristics impact decision-making and vice versa

Previous studies suggest that humans are capable of coregulating the speed of decisions and movements if promoted by task incentives. It is unclear however whether such behavior is inherent to the process of translating decisional information into movements, beyond posing a valid strategy in some task contexts. Therefore, in a behavioral online study we imposed time constraints to either decision- or movement phases of a sensorimotor task, ensuring that coregulating decisions and movements was not promoted by task incentives. We found that participants indeed moved faster when fast decisions were promoted and decided faster when subsequent finger tapping movements had to be executed swiftly. These results were further supported by drift diffusion modelling and inspection of psychophysical kernels: Sensorimotor delays related to initiating the finger tapping sequence were shorter in fast-decision as compared to slow-decision blocks. Likewise, the decisional speed-accuracy tradeoff shifted in favor of faster decisions in fast-tapping as compared to slow-tapping blocks. These findings suggest that decisions not only impact movement characteristics, but that properties of movement impact the time taken to decide. We interpret these behavioral results in the context of embodied decision-making, whereby shared neural mechanisms may modulate decisions and movements in a joint fashion.

Technology elements of behavioral energy testing of distributedinformation systems

Early testing of the reliability of functioning, performed before the occurrence of critical emergency situations, plays an important role in the theory and practice of monitoring and diagnosing various technical systems, including computer distributed information systems. Many checking and diagnostic methods directly or indirectly use the energy characteristics of systems, that are directly related to the work they execute, that is, their performance. The proposed elements of the technology of behavioral energy-consumptiontesting are based on the corresponding models and methods, supplemented by the registration and analysis of inertial temperature and operational volt/ampere char-acteristics of the test behavior of systems, at the model level represented by extendedenergy-consumptionPetri nets. The elements of behav-ioral testing technology,proposed in thiswork,are distinguished by an additional set of calculated and empirical boundary temperature and volt/ampere characteristics of both systems and their components. These characteristics represent states/vertexes,positions/transitions,frag-ments and scenarios of operation,that are critical in terms of energy consumption, which gives grounds for their monitoring. A feature of these elements of the technology is also the possibility of determining and using natural identifying properties of energy characteristics in behavioral testing, which allows them to be used in check and recognition experiments for the reliability of functioning, both independently and in conjunction with behavioral analysis. The use of additional analysis of energy consumption by temperature and volt/ampere character-istics,as part of complex testing technologies and automatic systems of technical diagnostic,based on them,makes it possible to increase the efficiency, completeness and flexibility of behavioral online and offline testing for computer distributed information systems.

Attachment Style and Jealousy in the Digital Age: Do Attitudes About Online Communication Matter?

Romantic jealousy, a complex response to a real or perceived threat to a romantic relationship, can have serious negative consequences for individuals, partners and perceived rivals. The likelihood of a jealous response is heightened among individuals who experience attachment anxiety, and online communication and social media provide unique fodder for romantic jealousy. The purpose of the current study is to test whether the association between attachment anxiety and online jealousy (jealous response to ambiguous hypothetical online scenarios) is moderated by negative attitudes about online communication. Individuals in dating relationships were asked about attachment anxiety and attitudes about online communication (i.e., apprehension and concern about misunderstandings) as well as emotional, cognitive, and behavioral online jealousy. Hierarchical linear regression revealed an attachment anxiety-attitude interaction, such that the link between attachment anxiety and jealousy was stronger for participants with relatively low levels of negative attitudes about online communication compared to participants with relatively high levels of negative attitudes. The current study expands knowledge about attachment anxiety and jealousy in the context of online communication and social media, and highlights the importance of considering attitudes about online communication when studying relationship processes in the digital arena.

Feasibility of a cognitive behavioral online intervention for women with Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder

Difficulties with sexual desire and arousal are common in women, but most lack access to effective treatment such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). eSense is a recently created online CBT intervention for sexual difficulties with promising evidence of usability. The current study assessed the feasibility of women completing the full eSense CBT program without guidance. Eleven women with Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder completed eSense and provided feedback via semi-structured interviews. Participants reported high satisfaction with eSense's functionality, improved knowledge about sexuality, greater awareness of their thought patterns, and better perspective around their sexual difficulties. Despite some difficulty completing homework, participants exhibited statistically significant pre-post improvements in sexual desire (d = 1.04), sexual arousal (d = 1.83), sexual satisfaction (d = 1.35), and sexual distress (d = 1.79). The findings add to the growing evidence that self-guided online interventions are feasible and potentially efficacious in treating female sexual dysfunction.

Mediator-moderator, innovation of mobile CRM, e-service convenience, online perceived behav-ioral control and reuse online shopping intention

Stimulating customers’ reuse of online services, such as online shopping, is integral for companies. Consequently, this study assessed the effects of mobile customer relationship management on reuse online intention and the impact of mobile customer relationship management on service convenience. Additionally, the study analyzed the effect of service convenience on reuse online intention, the mediating role of service convenience between mobile customer relationship management and reuse online intention and the moderating role of online perceived behavior control between service convenience and reuse online intention. This study utilized two theories: the technology acceptance model and planned behavior. A total of 249 responses from customers were analyzed with Smart Partial Least Squares. According to the study, mobile customer relationship management positively impacts service convenience and reuse online intention. Additionally, service convenience mediated the connection between mobile customer relationship management and reuse of online intention, and online perceived behavioral control moderated the association between service convenience and reuse online intention. The study focused on consumers’ motivations regarding reuse online services intention. The goal here is to aid organizations in the implementation of service convenience and innovative online strategies and applications that provide services to consumers.

Predicting problematic smartphone use over time in adolescence: A latent class regression analysis of online and offline activities

Despite today’s ubiquitous nature of smartphones among adolescents, little is known about behavioural online and offline longitudinal predictors of problematic smartphone use (PSU). Guided by Uses and Gratifications Theory, we applied latent class analysis on survey data collected in 2017 from a cohort of 1096 adolescents ( Mage = 12.4, SDage = 0.56) and regressed PSU measured 1 year later on class membership, controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, social desirability and autoregressive effects. We extracted four distinct classes: social-recreational onliners ( n = 228), weekend onliners ( n = 331), balanced ( n = 404) and noninvolved ( n = 153). Characterised by significantly more time spent online for recreational and social networking activities, both during weekdays and weekend days, as well as less time for sleep, the social-recreational onliners class showed significantly higher levels of PSU over time. Future studies should assess not only duration but also the frequency of daily online activities to provide further insights into behavioural predictors of PSU.

BEHAVIORAL VERIFICATION OF INTERNET OF THINGS SYSTEMS BY PETRI NETS

The rapid development, implementation in all spheres of human activity and the growing responsibility of the functions of the Internet of things systems tighten and complicate the requirements for the reliability of their design decisions at the development stages and operability during the implementation of implementations. Well-known methods of verification of projects and implementations are based on the means of systemic, structural, functional, design and technological analysis and synthesis of Internet of things systems. However, their capabilities do not underestimate the feasibility of developing formalized models and verification methods. This study presents the elements of technology and the steps of the behavioral verification methodology of functional level projects for Internet of things systems represented using Petri nets. General verification is represented by three stages - the analysis of the correctness of the general structural and functional properties, the actual verification of inter-level and inter-component interactions, behavioral online and offline testing in the class of functional type errors. In the proposed analysis, the basic entities and relationships of the Internet of things systems are determined and verified architectural level, defining the structure, components, functions, interfaces, asynchronous-event interactions and represent elements of Petri nets - their positions, transitions, arcs, functions, markup. Online and offline testing for dynamic verification of the behavior of the Internet of things systems is carried out on the basis of, respectively, the background or special formation of many process threads in the Petri net, activated during its modeling and covering the Petri net objects. This paper presents general estimates of resource and time costs for the design of Internet of things systems without verification and with verification, showing their reduction in the event of design errors, redesign and application of verification. Verification is illustrated by the example of Petri nets simulating an automatic lighting system.

The CKD-DETECT study: An RCT aimed at improving intention to initiate a kidney health check in Australian practice nurses.

The burden of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) on the Australian health system is growing. Efforts to reverse this trend have not been successful. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a targeted asynchronous web based e-learning module on general practice nurses' behavioural intentions in relation to opportunistic screening practices for people at risk of CKD. Double blinded pre-post interventional randomised control design. Participants were nurses working in general practice settings in Australia. Participants were randomised to a knowledge based active control or targeted behavioural based intervention which were delivered using asynchronous e-learning modules. The intervention was designed to influence the behavioural constructs of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB): attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control (PBC). Of the 420 participants, we analysed the primary and secondary outcomes for 212 (50.47%) who had complete follow up data. There were no significant differences (p 0.424, [d] 0.04) in behavioural intention between the intervention and control groups at follow-up, when controlling for baseline values. However, regression models assessing the relationship between the change in the TPB constructs and behavioural intention at follow-up for all participants, regardless of study arm, demonstrated a significant change in intention to initiate a kidney health check. Although these changes could not be attributed to the effect of the intervention. Attitude (r2 = 0.3525, p 0.0004) and PBC (r2 = 0.3510, p 0.0005) models accounted for approximately 35% of the explained variance in behavioural intentions and social norm (r2 = 0.3297, p 0.0171) accounted for approximately 33% of the variance. When all TPB constructs were included in the model, 37% of the variance in intention was explained. A targeted behavioural online intervention was no more effective than a knowledge based online program to improve primary health care nurses' intention to initiate a kidney health check in people at risk of chronic kidney disease. Collaborative efforts are required by all staff working in general practice to develop models of care to improve screening practices for chronic kidney disease. Future research should focus on interventions that improve collaboration between health care professionals in the primary care setting and public health campaigns to increase awareness of risks of CKD and the importance of screening in the primary care setting.

SINGLE-LEVEL METHOD OF BEHAVIORAL ONLINE TESTING OF DISTRIBUTED INFORMATION SYSTEMS

The article considers a single-level method of behavioral online testing with recognition of the reference behavior of DIS. The method features are the evolu-tionary search for reference behavior in the flow of DIS functioning, paralleliza-tion of operations of check recognition and evolutionary development of check populations. The method allows to reduce the complexity and time of check, to make it compatible with the real functioning of the DIS.

F120. USING DIGITAL MEDIA ADVERTISING IN EARLY PSYCHOSIS INTERVENTION

BackgroundIdentifying and engaging youth with early stage psychotic disorders in order to facilitate timely treatment initiation remains a major public health challenge. While advertisers routinely use the internet to directly target consumers, limited efforts have focused on applying available technology to proactively encourage help seeking in the mental health community. This study explores how one might take advantage of Google Adwords in order to reach prospective patients with early psychosis.MethodsA landing page was developed with the primary goal of encouraging help seeking individuals in New York City to contact their local early psychosis intervention clinic. In order to provide the best opportunity to reach the intended audience, Google AdWords was utilized linking over 2,000 manually selected search terms to strategically placed landing page advertisements. The campaign ran for 14 weeks between April 11th and July 18th 2016 with a total budget of $1427.ResultsThe ads appeared 191,313 times and were clicked on 4,350 times at a per-click cost of $.33. Many users took additional help seeking steps including obtaining psychosis specific information/education (n=1,918 / 44%), completing a psychosis self-screener (n=671 / 15%) and contacting the Early Treatment Program (n=57 / 1%).DiscussionDigital ads appear to be a reasonable and cost effective method to reach individuals who are searching for behavioral health information online. More research is needed to better understand the many complex steps between online search inquiries and making first clinical contact.

Security and privacy in online social networking: Risk perceptions and precautionary behaviour

A quantitative behavioural online study examined a set of hazards that correspond with security- and privacy settings of the major global online social network (Facebook). These settings concern access to a user's account and access to the user's shared information (both security) as well as regulation of the user's information-sharing and user's regulation of others' information-sharing in relation to the user (both privacy). We measured 201 non-student UK users' perceptions of risk and other risk dimensions, and precautionary behaviour. First, perceptions of risk and dread were highest and precautionary behaviour was most common for hazards related to users' regulation of information-sharing. Other hazards were perceived as less risky and less precaution was taken against these, even though they can lead to breaches of users' security or privacy. Second, consistent with existing theory, significant predictors of perceived risk were attitude towards sharing information on Facebook, dread, voluntariness, catastrophic potential and Internet experience; and significant predictors of precautionary behaviour were perceived risk, control, voluntariness and Internet experience. Methodological implications emphasise the need for non-aggregated analysis and practical implications emphasise interventions to promote safe online social-network use.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING AND CONSUMERBASED BRAND EQUITY THE ROLE OF BRAND EXPERIENCE AMONG MILLENNIALS IN ONLINE FASHION COMMUNITIES

Social media are increasingly becoming a strategic vehicle of modern companies’ way of communicating and interacting with consumers. Actually, social media marketing (SMM) has recently emerged as an effective two-way communication channel able to provide the sharing and exchange of information, ideas, and user-generated content in virtual environments. This is especially true for fashion brands, which are progressively creating interactive platforms such as online brand communities in order to enhance their consumer-based brand equity (CBE), interpreted as the consumers’ assessment of a company brand image, identity, and value. Scholars have widely analyzed the relationship between a company’s SMM and brand equity, thus finding a direct positive impact of the five main constructs depicting perceived SMM activities, namely entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization, and word of mouth, on CBE. Despite this relevant scholarly interest, the consumer behavioral responses linking a company perceived SMM activities and CBE have been largely neglected. Actually, consumers’ benefits from virtual environments and online brand experience may represent significant elements marketing strategists should focus on in order to enhance a company’s brand equity. Building on the uses and gratifications theory and experiential marketing, we develop a conceptual model that unpacks such linkages, by relating SMM activities, perceived benefits of using social media, online brand experience, and CBE. Specifically, we interpret SMM activities as significant brand-related stimuli able to influence consumers’ cognitive, social interactive, personal interactive, and hedonic benefits, which in turn influence consumers’ sensory, affective, behavioral, and intellectual online experience. Moreover, we investigate the experiential responses of consumers that mostly affect a company’s brand equity, which finally impacts on consumers’ purchase intention of the fashion brand. The model is validated using structural equation modeling (SEM) on a sample of real users of online brand communities operating in the fashion industry. Our sample is composed of Millennials, which currently represent the most influential grown-digital generation of consumers. Overall, our findings shed light on consumers’ online behavioral and experiential responses to a company’s perceived SMM activities, thus proposing strategic implications for the management of brand online communities and suggesting interesting possibilities of future research on social media and fashion consumers.

Determinants of Online Buying Behaviour

The emerging digital economy has opened up new paradigms for retailing, and consumers across the world face new opportunities and challenges. However, the online firms face various problems today. The shopping cart abandonment in online shopping context is one such serious concern at present. On average, 71% of shopping carts are abandoned without a purchase. As a result, the researcher intends to probe the causes of online shopping cart abandonment in this study. According to the theory of planned behaviour, if there is a positive behavioural intention supported by favourable perceived behavioural controls online customers should end up with buying the product. However, abandonment of shopping cart is a situation that goes against this theory. The data was collected from online buyers across the world (n = 521) who were selected based on convenience in accessing them. This study while supporting the demographic factors of Age, Status and Gender to determine the abandonment behaviour shows there is no such relationship between geographical divide and abandonment behaviour. Moreover, this study suggests the executives and scholars to consider Age, Status and Gender when segmenting the markets in online context to minimize the abandonment behaviour and not to focus more on the geographical divide in such instances.

Presenting and analyzing movie stimuli for psychocinematic research

Movies have an extraordinary way of capturing our perceptual, conceptual and emotional processes. As such, they offer a useful means of exploring psychological phenomenon in the laboratory. Until recently, it has been rather difficult to present animated stimuli and collect behavioral responses online. However, with advances in digital technology and commercially available software to construct, present, and analyze movies for behavioral investigations, there is a growing interest in psychocinematic research. A rather simple, yet useful procedure is described that presents movie clips and collects multiple behavioral responses during its presentation. It uses E-prime 2.0 Professional software to run the experiment and Microsoft Excel to sort and analyze the data.

Simulating Behavioural Interviews Using Synchronous Communication Software: Elluminate Live

This practice application brief reviews the preparation, implementation and evaluation of running behavioural interviews online. In a collaborative program between the School of Information Technology and the Careers and Employment service at Deakin University in Australia, students demonstrated their ability to articulate their generic employability skills within a simulated interview environment using Elluminate Live (www. elluminate.com) (or eLive at Deakin University), a 'real-time' communication application.

Commentary: Interest in Internet Interventions--an Infant Sleep Program as Illustration

The majority of American families have access to the Internet and report using it as a source for healthcare and medical information (Fox, 2005b; Fox & Fallows, 2003; Khoo, Bolt, Babel, Jury, & Goldman, 2008; Whyte & Hunter, 2008). And, as this special issue in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology demonstrates, the Internet is now being used to deliver behaviorally based treatments. Although there are a number of studies examining the feasibility and efficacy of pediatric Internet interventions, there is little information on how generally interested parents are in receiving behavioral treatments online, and whether providers would recommend them as a resource for their patients. Even though there is growing evidence supporting the efficacy of these programs, without substantive interest, parents will not likely utilize these programs and providers will not be interested in recommending them to patients outside of clinical trials. To examine these issues, our research team investigated parent and provider interest in an online program addressing one of the most common behavioral concerns for parents–infant sleep problems (Blum & Carey, 1996). As many as 20–30% of infants wake throughout the night or have difficulty falling asleep at bedtime (Lozoff, Wolf, & Davis, 1985; Richman, 1981). These sleep problems can persist into later years (Pollock, 1994; Zuckerman, Stevenson, & Bailey, 1987), potentially resulting in negative effects for both the child (e.g., increased health problems, cognitive difficulties) and the parent (e.g., maternal depression, marital discord). Although behavioral interventions are effective in the treatment of pediatric sleep problems (Mindell, Kuhn, Lewin, Meltzer, & Sadeh, 2006; Morgenthaler et al., 2006), disseminating this information to parents can be difficult because of barriers associated with traditional face-to-face interventions, such as time for scheduled appointments and expense of treatment. To examine parent and provider interest in online dissemination of a behavioral sleep intervention, we surveyed expectant parents, parents of young children, and providers of either expectant parents or infants.