Meaningful Story Research Articles

Reflections on using the story completion method in designing tangible user interfaces

There are many design techniques to support the co-design of tangible technologies. However, few of these design methods allow the involvement of users at scale and across diverse geographic locations. While popular in psychology, the story completion method (SCM) has only recently started to be adopted within the HCI community. We explore whether SCM can generate meaningful design insights from large, diverse study populations for the design of Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs). Based on the results of two questionnaire studies using SCM, we conclude that the method can be used to generate meaningful design insights. Drawing on a systematic review of 870 TUI papers, we then contextualise the strengths and weaknesses of SCM against commonly used design methods, before reflecting on our experience of using the method across two distinct domains. We discuss the advantages of the method (particularly in terms of the scale and diversity of participation) and the challenges (particularly around constructing meaningful story stems, and developing the correct level of scaffolding to support creativity). We conclude that SCM is particularly suitable to be used in the early stages of the design process to understand the socio-cultural context of deployment.

Teacher Experience to Employ Technological Pedagogical Knowledge in Teaching English: An Autobiographical Narrative

Previous studies have discussed TPACK's constructions in the last decade, which focus on teacher professional development, survey TPACK’s (Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge) enactment, experimental, and teacher TPACK’s profile. A few studies are focused on the subdomains of TPACK, TPK (Technological Pedagogical Knowledge), which discusses how teachers' experiences practice TPK. It has become a new scope of exploration in Indonesia. The present study aims to narrate my meaningful story by employing technological and pedagogical in teaching English to Vocational High Schools. It will focus on how I practice TPK as a novice teacher in Indonesia's private Vocational High School. The data was collected through my teaching diary and supported with students' artifacts. This research is grounded in an autobiographical narrative, which explores the meaningful story of the narrator. The finding of this study reveals that the researcher, as a novice teacher, can employ TPK in teaching English by joining professional teacher development and self-awareness to make innovations in using technology and provide different learning activities using technologies. The present study might bring future research contributions for preparing TPK, reflecting TPK, and evaluating TPK in teaching English for Foreign Language (EFL).

Dairy data Duolingo: The veterinarian’s critical role in translating farm data to real change

Most veterinarians don’t enter the field because they love all things data; however, they are uniquely positioned to serve the critical needs of dairy farmers by translating their herd data into meaningful stories. While it can be overwhelming to see the amount of data generated on dairy farms, it is essential to take the time to learn everything you can about your client’s business. Practice working through farm data the same way you would learn another language: speaking a little bit every day and mak­ing it relevant. Each client is unique in their data needs, but all clients want to feel comfortable with their business.

The linear multiform: a cognitive model for E-Fiction

ABSTRACT This article applies a cognitive narratological approach to Janet Murray’s conception of the “multiform” digital text that allows a user to experience multiple versions or alternative outcomes of a story. I argue from a psychologically-grounded position that branching narratives are fundamentally dissatisfying due to completionism, the onus of choice and diffusion of inherent stakes. With reference to two of my own texts, AMNESIAC (2021) and Mutiny on the Batavia (2022), I describe a version of the multiform story that makes use of a labile digital text-space while preserving the teleology of a linear narrative, and which speaks to the essential human experience of a unique, individual existence over time. Digital texts, I also argue, can dramatise both the arbitrary and contingent mental constructions of reality and the determinist nature of media forms. An increasingly immersive mediated existence means that experimental narratives in particular must fulfil our prior expectations of meaningful stories while also using the allowances of unbound narrative to keep written stories innovative, interesting and to expose their essentially constructed nature.

Book Review: Instructional story design: Develop stories that train

In Instructional story design: Develop stories that train, Greene proves the benefits of using stories in training and demonstrates how to do that successfully. With practical instruction and examples, Instructional story design leads the reader through developing stories, working with subject matter experts (SMEs), and producing story-based training. Greene illustrates his expertise in story design by using story to instruct his design methods throughout the book. The reader follows a fictitious instructional designer, Dayna, as she grapples with, learns to, and triumphs in using stories in her elearning projects. She works with SMEs, clients, stakeholders, and managers and follows instructional design (ID) practices while developing meaningful stories to connect with her learners and convey the training. Through Dayna’s struggles and victories, the reader learns how to create audience personas, build relatable characters, and focus on the action and conflict of the story as it relates to training objectives. Greene further describes how to produce stories using common technology tools, champion stories to convince doubting stakeholders, and overcome common pitfalls.

Divvying Up Data: A Data Analytics Case

ABSTRACT This case asks students to assume the role of a newly hired (data) analyst for Divvy, Chicago’s bike share program. In this role, they use data analytics software to perform data analysis and data visualization techniques. This case can be implemented in multiple parts, and it is scalable for the unique needs of instructors and their students. Introductory topics include assessing the properties of the data, describing data validation techniques, creating calculated variables, and constructing basic data visualizations. Advanced topics include joining additional data sources, developing and investigating research questions, and creating dashboards to tell a meaningful story about the data. The case is unique because it enables students to interact with a large, real-world dataset, and it is ideal for accounting information systems or data analytics courses.

The imperfect tense in the poetics of El Jarama by Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio

In this paper an analysis of the poetic use of the imperfect tense in El Jarama by Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio is proposed basing on the concept of narrative grounding. The claim made in the paper is that in El Jarama the imperfect is used in a manner that breaks down the narrative foreground-background distinction. As a consequence, the arrangement of the events into a meaningful story line is nullified, which affects the way the narrative is experienced and interpreted.

Comparing qualitative and quantitative text analysis methods in combination with document-based social network analysis to understand policy networks

AbstractThe literature that reflects on the application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) in combination with other methods is flourishing. However, there is a dearth of studies that compare qualitative and quantitative methods to complement structural SNA. This article addresses this gap by systematically discussing the advantages and disadvantages relating to the use of qualitative text analysis and interviewing as well as quantitative text mining and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques such as word frequency analysis, cluster analysis, topic modeling, and topic classification to understand policy networks. This method-oriented comparative study features two empirical studies that respectively examine the Employment Thematic Network, established under the aegis of the European Commission, and the intergovernmental cooperation network set up within the Bologna Process. The article compares and discusses the underlying research processes in terms of time, human resources, research resources, unobtrusiveness, and effectiveness toward the goal of telling meaningful stories about the examined networks in light of specific guiding hypotheses. In doing so, the paper nurtures the debate on mixed-methods research on social networks amidst the well-known paradigm war between qualitative and quantitative methods in network analysis.

Data Journalism and Its Changing Role in News Gathering and Writing in the 21st Century

In the rapidly evolving landscape of journalism in the 21st century, data journalism has emerged as a transformative force, reshaping the way news is gathered and written. In light of the above, this study examines data journalism and its changing role in news gathering and writing in the 21st century. The researcher embarked on this study basically to examine the roles of data journalism in news gathering and writing, examine the extent to which data-driven storytelling has influenced the credibility, engagement, and audience perception of news stories and explore the challenges and ethical considerations faced by journalists in integrating data-driven content into their reporting. This study is anchored on the uses and gratification theory. The researcher adopted the secondary method of data collection. Findings reveal that data journalism plays crucial roles in news gathering and writing, revolutionising how stories are researched, reported, and presented. The study also found that data-driven storytelling has significantly influenced news stories' credibility, engagement, and audience perception, reshaping how information is presented and received. This study concludes that data journalism has emerged as a transformative force in news gathering and writing in the 21st century. With advancements in technology and the increasing availability of data, journalists have begun harnessing their power to uncover meaningful stories and provide accurate and insightful reporting. Based on this study's findings, this study recommends that journalists should prioritise ongoing training and skill development in data analysis, visualisation tools, and storytelling techniques. This will empower them to work with data effectively, create engaging visualisations, and craft compelling narratives that resonate with modern audiences.

Between light and shadow: The impact of light augmentation on storytelling and audience engagement in urban, commercial and public spaces

The exploration of light as a transformative and narrative tool in urban spaces has been traced from its historical roots in the 1800s to its contemporary application in creating ‘spatial augmented realities’. This evolution has been examined through the lens of advanced light projection technologies, which have been used to craft compelling narratives and transform public and private spaces. The role of audience engagement in constructing these narratives has been investigated, highlighting the importance of participation and interaction in creating meaningful stories through light technologies. This exploration has led to developing a theoretical model for ‘accordant’ and ‘discordant’ audience responses, providing a framework to understand the spectrum of audience engagement and its impact on the success of light-based narratives. The concept of light projection mapping has been further elucidated, revealing its potential to expand and transform existing spaces through the superimposition of digital representations. This process has been defined, and its technical aspects have been discussed, providing a comprehensive understanding of its application in various settings. Light art has been categorized based on its narrative function and application, with examples drawn from events and festivals that utilize light projection to celebrate heritage or culture. These examples demonstrate light art’s versatility and multifaceted nature in creating memorable and meaningful experiences. The social implications of light projection mapping on monuments have been discussed, positioning it as a medium for audiences to reflect on historical events and their impact on the present. This exploration contributes to the understanding of how light can be used to enhance spaces, tell stories, and engage audiences in urban environments and provides a theoretical basis for future research and practice in the field of light art.

Nurturing caring pedagogical relationships through a digital storytelling approach: New avenues for educators

The digital storytelling approach is a creative and powerful learning strategy, offering new ways of actualizing oneself and connecting people with each other. From a relational emancipatory pedagogy perspective, the author shared a narrative story of a successful caring pedagogical relationship and offered new avenues to inspire novice and seasoned educators to transform their teaching practices within social diversity. Sharing meaningful stories would nurture caring pedagogical relationships and foster an inclusive pedagogy in nursing education.

Media Massa dan Proses Konstruksi Realitas dalam Kajian Teori Sistem dan Differensiasi

The mass media itself is referred to as "media" because of its nature as a medium / intermediary. For the discipline of Communication Science, the media (as a medium) is one of the factors forming the communication process. Whereas mass media, in general knowledge is more defined in institutions / organizations / media companies that produce information in the form of commodities traded, called mass media because the process seeks to direct the results of its production to the widest possible audience. Reality construction is the process by which mass media create information products before they are accepted by the public. Construction of reality is more defined as an effort to compile the reality of one or a number of events that were originally fragmented (random) to be systematic to form a meaningful story or discourse. This article attempts to read the process of constructing reality with the perspective of System Theory and Differentiation from Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann sees through these two perspectives that people get reality from the mass media as the second form of reality that occurs, because the first reality obtained by the mass media experiences the construction of reality when it enters the mass media area. The basis for the construction of reality in the mass media is the existence of self-references and other references present in the mass media system. The mass media system distinguishes self-references and other references in themselves in the form of the construction of reality or the results of information distributed to the public.

From the Imagination to the Reality: Historical Aspects of Rewriting Six Dynasties Buddhist Avadāna Stories

In at least two aspects, Buddhist Avadāna literature shares a strong affinity with Chinese literature. One type of stories can be seen as parallel tales that bear striking resemblances to Chinese tales, while the other type has been assimilated by Chinese writers and transformed into Chinese tales. Regarding the first kind, there are many parallels between Buddhist and Chinese stories throughout the Six Dynasties (222–589), and it was only later that these stories were somehow compiled into collections that brought these parallels to light. As an example of the second type, in linggui zhi 靈鬼志 (The Record of Magical Ghosts) of the Jin Dynasty (265–402), the story of waiguo daoren 外國道人 (“the Foreign Master”) adapts the magical plot in which a man throws up a jug from the story of fanzhi tuhu 梵志吐壺 (“a Brahmin Spits a jug”) in the Buddhist text, yet it changes certain objects of the story to items with Chinese characteristics and develops new meaning. In Xu qixiezhi 續齊諧志 (Further Records of Qixie [Supernatural tales]), the famous e’long shusheng 鵝籠書生 (“the Goose Cage Scholar”, also known as the yangxian shusheng 陽羨書生” (the Scholar from Yangxian)”), takes the same story to another level. The structure of the story is changed, and a number of literati aesthetic interests are added, improving the literary color, smoothing down the language, and making substitutions in the text’s specifics, thus, bolstering the sense of realism and history. Meanwhile, in Liu Yiqing’s 劉義慶 (403–444) Xuanyan ji 宣驗記 (Records Manifest Records of Manifest Miracles), the Avadāna tale yingwu jiuhuo 鸚鵡救火 (“the Parrot Putting Out the Fire”) that he collected is not only associated with Buddhism but can also be seen as a commentary on the turbulent times and a hint of literati optimism if we view it in the context of Liu Yiqing’s Youminglu 幽明錄 (Record of the Hidden and Visible Worlds). The literary elites of the Six Dynasties drew inspiration from Buddhist Avadāna sources and imaginatively mixed them with historical circumstances to create Chinese fiction with new intentions. The rich resources of Avadāna literature from India and the fable tradition in Chinese literature create cultural conditions for these two sources to combine and mutually develop, forming a world of literature with colorful and meaningful stories.

A material ecocritical approach to the poetry of Dylan Thomas

Material ecocriticism, representing a material turn in ecocritical studies, is faithfully committed to undermine the anthropocentric ideology of humans’ superiority over the natural environment and reconfigures human and nonhuman beings as materially entangled entities whose stories as well as physical bodies are interwoven together. What essentially emphasized by the material ecocritical theory is the indistinguishable relatedness and the coexistence of the physical universe and the textuality, the mattfer and the language, human and nature. Demolishing human’s exceptional status over nature and rejecting any kind of human guardianship of nature, material ecocriticism unshackles nature from human representations, definitions or meanings and attributes vitality and agency to natural elements that are capable of producing meaningful stories of their own. Accordingly, Dylan Thomas (1924-1953) reinforces man’s situatedness within the earth throughout his poetry, instead of constructing impermeable discrepancies between human and nature. Thomas develops material ecological understanding of the universe in which human and nonhuman entities are biologically connected to each other. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze Dylan Thomas’ poetry from the perspective of material ecocriticism to provide an insight to Thomas’ depiction of nature as a dynamic entity rather than as a passive object.

Remarkably reproducible psychological (memory) phenomena in the classroom: some evidence for generality from small-N research

BackgroundMainstream psychology is experiencing a crisis of confidence. Many of the methodological solutions offered in response have focused largely on statistical alternatives to null hypothesis statistical testing, ignoring nonstatistical remedies that are readily available within psychology; namely, use of small-N designs. In fact, many classic memory studies that have passed the test of replicability used them. That methodological legacy warranted a retrospective look at nonexperimental data to explore the generality of the reported effects.MethodVarious classroom demonstrations were conducted over multiple semesters in introductory psychology courses with typical, mostly freshman students from a predominantly white private Catholic university in the US Midwest based on classic memory experiments on immediate memory span, chunking, and depth of processing.ResultsStudents tended to remember 7 ± 2 digits, remembered more digits of π following an attached meaningful story, and remembered more words after elaborative rehearsal than after maintenance rehearsal. These results amount to replications under uncontrolled classroom environments of the classic experiments originally conducted largely outside of null hypothesis statistical testing frameworks.ConclusionsIn light of the ongoing replication crisis in psychology, the results are remarkable and noteworthy, validating these historically important psychological findings. They are testament to the reliability of reproducible effects as the hallmark of empirical findings in science and suggest an alternative approach to commonly proffered solutions to the replication crisis.

Semiotic Analysis of Sephora’s Beauty Campaign Video

Social campaign has gained its popularity over these past years. With the rapid business development, many brands compete with each other to create a simple campaign video but still has a meaningful story. To analyze the data, the writer use semiotic approach. This study aims to discover the meaning of verbal and visual signs, and in what ways those meanings are conveyed in Sephora’s The Unlimited Power of Beauty video. The findings show that in The Unlimited Power of Beauty video, Sephora strives to redefine the term of beauty which cannot be determined merely by particular criteria such as having a white and flawless skin, but beauty can be defined in all forms, sizes, and ages through the verbal and visual signs.

The Sports-Based Holistic Development Model: The General Public’s Transformation by Having a Meaningful Story Through Sport

Despite an increasing expectation of sports’ potential as contributors to society, not many studies have longitudinally examined their social, economic, and cultural outcomes. This study proposes an integrated conceptual model to enhance the holistic understanding of sports-based development initiative. Applying this model to the “Vision 2030: Live Better through Sport” road map in Singapore, the longitudinal study empirically shows that the public’s participation in grassroots sports activities is a fundamental engine of sports-based holistic development for multi-dimensional outcomes among grassroots, elite, and mega sports dynamics. Also, this study presents a general sport system model to describe the mechanism for social impacts and longitudinal outcomes in the sports-based development initiatives, which provides strategic guideline for project monitoring and evaluation for the actual outcomes. Importantly, the findings offer policy insights into the public’s transformation by having a meaningful story through sport as a high leverage point in the sport-based holistic development system.

How short film ads improve brand attitudes: The roles of viewing experiences and consumption visions

AbstractThis article proposes a model to predict how the content of short film ads might trigger hedonic and eudaimonic experiences, which then contribute to positive changes in attitudes toward the sponsoring brand, through two processes. In the first process, people seek branded entertainment to break away from their mundane reality. The ultimate purpose is to enjoy hedonic experiences, as might be triggered by a funny plot that induces perceptions of humor, which in turn can evoke positive affect. In the second process, consumers search for meaning through vicarious experiences, which enable them to achieve personal growth. In this process, the purpose is to find meaning or acquire eudaimonic experiences. Because a meaningful story plot explicitly encourages consumers to reflect on their lives, it helps them feel inspired and develop sentimental feelings, thus leading to eudaimonic experiences. The proposed dual process model suggests that gratification derived from viewing short film ads, due to hedonic or eudaimonic experiences, can prompt positive brand attitude changes. Moreover, consumption visions triggered by short films contribute to product changes; they moderate the first process but not the second.

L1 Poetry and Moral Stories as a Factor Affecting Acquisition of L2 Oracy Skills in EFL Settings

The current study works on the belief that literature (poetry and moral tales) can be a powerful tool for acquisition of oracy in an EFL setting and studies the impetus given to L2 learning as a factor of exposure to poetry and meaningful stories in L1. It aims to investigate whether students’ L1 can play a positive role in reasonable L2 oral output on the premise of using literature in the classroom. The study also compares whether or not the students’ scores develop significantly as a result of the intervention. It adopts a quasi-experiment design in which 75 level 1 Saudi EFL students at the Department of English and Translation participate by enrolling in a listening-speaking test in with evaluation is based on an ASL descriptors rubric. The intervention follows a version of Ochi’s (2009) practice of Interpreting Training Method (ITM) using Quick-Response Practice and Sight Translation (Ochi also uses Shadowing and Summarization in addition to these). Findings show that using L1 literary genre can help in developing EFL students’ oracy skills. Furthermore, the study reports that students gain in all the four elements as 2.7 points in comprehension and 3.8 in coherence, and 1.8 points in pronunciation and 1.4 in grammar/ vocabulary on a scale of 1-10, however, in comprehension and coherence the enhancement is significant, p =0.000. It recommends EFL teachers to integrate the use of L1 literature in EFL classroom as inputs in facilitating L2 output.

Adapting Hollywood acting techniques to engage audiences

This paper shows how the principles of storytelling that actors use to craft compelling, believable performances lend themselves perfectly to the discipline of marketing. Drawing on the scene study exercise — an activity common to acting conservatories the world over — the paper shows how marketers can deepen their understanding of human behaviour and motivation. With this enriched sense of empathy, they can then go out in the world to craft more meaningful stories that drive action. This paper sets a framework for developing the skills necessary for human-centred storytelling. It starts by examining theories of human cognition to explain why storytelling is so effective. It then provides a vocabulary for human-centred stories, borrowed from the author’s work as an actor in Hollywood. Throughout, the paper makes direct and practical connections between the crafts of acting and marketing, highlighting concepts that marketers of all disciplines can consider for their content and campaigns.