Online Immersion Research Articles

Proposal of a Measurement Scale and Test of the Impacts on Purchase and Revisit Intention

Online immersion is considered as a determining factor of web surfers’ reactions. Its importance may be greater in a 3D-enriched environment. However, little research has explored it in marketing and less has investigated its impact on consumer behaviour in an enriched commercial website. In addition, when it comes to its operationalization, many weaknesses are noticed in the existing literature. Accordingly, the objective of this study is two-fold: in order to test the impact of immersion on purchase and revisit intentions to a 3D-enriched commercial website, a scale measurement of immersion tailored to this specific context is proposed. Following Churchill’s framework and the recommendations of Rossiter, a number of methodological instruments, including two focus groups (the first with 4 experts; the second with 18 consumers) and three surveys (first: 140 students; second: 350 Internet users; third: 200 Internet users), are used. The confirmatory factor analysis resulted in an 8-item scale which seems to exhibit evidence of reliability and validity. The predictive validity was confirmed since the impacts of immersion on the intentions to buy and revisit the website are significant. The proposed scale measure may help academics conduct better and more reliable studies on consumer behaviour online.

Impacts of immersion on loyalty to guesthouse websites: The simultaneous effect of 3d decor and avatars in a hyper-real environment

ABSTRACT Much research has studied the impacts of atmospheric factors on immersion in commercial websites and on consumer online behaviour. However, it has, each time, tested the impact of the virtual technologies separately keeping unexplored their simultaneous impact on Internet users’ attitudes and behaviors. Therefore, this study examines the simultaneous effects of avatars and the 3D decor in the context of guesthouse websites on online immersion and explores the consequences in terms of mental imagery and behavioral intentions. The results of an experiment validate the hypotheses and offer interesting managerial recommendations. This research provides a better understanding of online immersion and consumer behavior in a hyper-real environment.

Measuring E-Browsing Behaviour and Testing its Impact on Online Immersion

In an online environment, enriched by different types of cues that may distract a consumer, investigating and operationalizing, e-browsing behaviour becomes a must to understand consumer behaviour online. Nevertheless, existing research on the online environment has only used and adapted scales measuring offline browsing. In fact, the existing literature fails to offer a scale measuring browsing specifically in the online context. Consequently, this study fills this gap by developing a scale measuring e-browsing following the Churchill paradigm enriched with the recommendations of Rossiter. For this purpose, a number of methodological instruments are used: two focus groups (the first with 4 experts and the second with 18 consumers) and three surveys (140 students for the first survey, 350 and 200 Internet users, respectively, for the second and third survey). Results put forth a unidimensional scale with 7 items, which seems to exhibit evidence of reliability and validity. The predictive validity was checked by testing the impact of e-browsing on online immersion. The proposed scale measure may help academicians perform better and more reliable studies on consumer behaviour online. It may help managers better understand the traffic on their websites and segment visitors to tailor better conversion strategies.

Who Is My Neighbor? Developing a Pedagogical Tool for Teaching Environmental Preaching and Ethics in Online and Hybrid Courses

As theological education has moved increasingly to online and hybrid settings (both by choice and by pandemic necessity), practical theologians committed to teaching ecological theological education must navigate a paradox. How do we teach about interconnectivity and interdependence between the human and other-than-human inhabitants of a particular place when our classrooms are in disembodied digital spaces? This article examines a case study of a pedagogical tool developed by the author called the “Who Is My Neighbor” Mapping Exercise that enables students to explore and articulate how they conceptualize themselves and their faith communities embedded within their larger ecological contexts. This paper assesses the use of the mapping exercise in four different course contexts: three online and one hybrid online–immersion course. The author provides an overview of each of the four course contexts in which the tool was used, includes descriptions of how students engaged the tool, and assesses its effectiveness. The author uses three types of criteria for assessment of the pedagogical exercise: student feedback, level of competence demonstrated in student assignments (sermons, worship services, teaching events), and personal observations, particularly around the differences between online and onsite contexts. The author suggests that the mapping exercise is a tool that can be used by others teaching practical theology to help students understand their relationships within Creation and their communities, critically engage environmental justice issues, and apply what they learn to their ministry contexts.

Telehealth Education: An Interprofessional Online Immersion Experience in Response to COVID-19

In March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, universities halted in-person education and health care pivoted to telehealth delivery models. This article describes a nurse-led educational program that transitioned to fully online delivery to prepare interprofessional teams of health care students to use telehealth during the pandemic and beyond. Participants included 67 students from seven professions. Researchers developed "the four Ps of telehealth" model to guide the curriculum. The program used pre- and postassessments including the Confidence in Planning for Telehealth Scale, the Telehealth Etiquette Knowledge Scale, and the Confidence in Providing Telehealth Scale. There were significant improvements in scores on all scales following the program (p = .000). The results suggest that comprehensive telehealth education should focus on more than just delivering telehealth but also planning and preparing for its delivery. Programs such as this online program can serve as a model for future telehealth programs to prepare providers. [J Nurs Educ. 2020;59(10):570-576.].

Memes, fake news e pós-verdade ou como a teoria de gênero vira uma “ideologia perigosa”

O presente artigo é baseado na tese nomeada “Quantas curtidas merece essa trans?” A recepção da transexualidade nas mídias digitais, realizada durante os anos de 2015 a 2018, a partir de imersão on-line oculta no Portal jornalístico Globo.com e em dois grupos do Facebook voltados para as temáticas de gênero. O trabalho imersivo revelou intensas disputas e opiniões inflamadas em torno das questões de gênero. O meme da ideologia de gênero foi um dado que chamou atenção na pesquisa, tais como o negacionismo e a pós-verdade material que tocava, sobretudo, em questões morais, ironizando e/ou rechaçando mudanças de comportamentos atribuídas a políticas de governo, corruptoras da moral e que fomentariam inversão de valores. Os memes foram usados como uma espécie de arma de guerra contra as teorias de gênero, convertidas em “ideologia perigosa”. Para a análise dos achados de pesquisa nos valemos das ferramentas teóricas dos estudos de gênero em sua vertente pós-estruturalista, dos estudos queer, flertando, ainda com aportes das ciências políticas.

Motivation Analysis of Online Green Users: Evidence From Chinese "Ant Forest".

Environmental protection activities based on digital technology have cultivated many online green users (OGUs) and may become a critical means to combat global climate change. This paper explores individuals’ motivation to participate in online environmental protection activities and whether the activities have significantly increased individuals’ intention to participate in global collaboration on climate change. Taking Ant Forest as an example, this paper first summarized 14 trigger reasons for users’ participation in online environmental protection activities through interviews, then surveyed 600 OGUs through questionnaires, and studied the behavioral motivation from the four dimensions of environmental awareness, social motivation, online immersion, and global cooperation intention by using a structural equation model. The study found that both environmental awareness and social motivation had significant positive promotional effects on OGUs’ online immersion, and environmental awareness was higher than social motivation. Environmental awareness as a long-term motivation is conducive to the achievement of long-term climate goals, and social motivation is focused on short-term entertainment functions. There is a significant positive interactive relationship between environmental awareness and social motivation under the effect of digital technology, which jointly promote the improvement of OGUs’ online immersion, and online immersion is conducive to enhancing OGUs’ global cooperation intention. This study demonstrated that digital technology can effectively improve individuals’ intention to protect the environment and found a means to quickly identify the best OGUs (most willing to participate in global cooperation), which provided a new opportunity to inspire greater public participation in the global action against climate change.

How to see art through the eyes of an avatar: Cao Fei's progression to online immersion

How to see art through the eyes of an avatar: Cao Fei's progression to online immersion

Evaluation of Role Acquisition and Preparation for the CNL Certification Examination Through an Online Immersion Course.

Evaluation of Role Acquisition and Preparation for the CNL Certification Examination Through an Online Immersion Course.

For a renewal of the situation concept: The situation of home online shopping

Twenty years after the pioneering article devoted to interactive home shopping by Alba et al., this research intends to study the situation of home online shopping (SHOS). An observation is carried out using video recording to examine the real practices that occur behind the screen. Two theoretical approaches are distinguished (classic and participatory). A new conceptualization of the situation is proposed that rests on three factors: the participants, spatial dimension, and time dimension. An analysis of the results highlights a main participant who interacts with other participants and business websites in addition to their spatial mobility and the materiality of the situation with its discontinuous characteristic. The fragmentation of the SHOS is emphasized. In addition to a new conceptualization of the situation, this research aims to relativize the online immersion process (flow) and to integrate the SHOS into a real omni-channel strategy.

How to see art through the eyes of an avatar: Cao Fei's progression to online immersion

Between 2004 and 2011, artist Cao Fei constructed an art-based theoretical framework that serves as a foyer into discussing online immersive environments. Spurred on by the colloquially reductive definitions of online worlds, and the lack of theoretical framework surrounding the experience of art through an avatar, this article aims to create a linguistic and theoretical framework for understanding these worlds and intersections. The following article divides the framework into three stages that subsequently become the three sections of this study: the World of fantasy, the World in flux, and the World as informational. In these three stages, Cao Fei utilises the theme of cosplay and its associated fantasy to uncover its function in determinant and material space, online immersive space, and a hybrid of both spaces. This paper makes a case for the significance of online immersive spaces as a technological evolution and shows the possibilities for creating meaning within.

Immersion mode ice nucleation measurements with the new Portable Immersion Mode Cooling chAmber (PIMCA)

AbstractThe new Portable Immersion Mode Cooling chAmber (PIMCA) has been developed for online immersion freezing of single‐immersed aerosol particles. PIMCA is a vertical extension of the established Portable Ice Nucleation Chamber (PINC). PIMCA immerses aerosol particles into cloud droplets before they enter PINC. Immersion freezing experiments on cloud droplets with a radius of 5–7 μm at a prescribed supercooled temperature (T) and water saturation can be conducted, while other ice nucleation mechanisms (deposition, condensation, and contact mode) are excluded. Validation experiments on reference aerosol (kaolinite, ammonium sulfate, and ammonium nitrate) showed good agreement with theory and literature. The PIMCA‐PINC setup was tested in the field during the Zurich AMBient Immersion freezing Study (ZAMBIS) in spring 2014 in Zurich, Switzerland. Significant concentrations of submicron ambient aerosol triggering immersion freezing at T > 236 K were rare. The mean frozen cloud droplet number concentration was estimated to be 7.22·105 L−1 for T < 238 K and determined from the measured frozen fraction and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations predicted for the site at a typical supersaturation of SS = 0.3%. This value should be considered as an upper limit of cloud droplet freezing via immersion and homogeneous freezing processes. The predicted ice nucleating particle (INP) concentration based on measured total aerosol larger than 0.5 μm and the parameterization by DeMott et al. (2010) at T = 238 K is INPD10=54 ± 39 L−1. This is a lower limit as supermicron particles were not sampled with PIMCA‐PINC during ZAMBIS.

The Online Bingo Boom in the UK: A Qualitative Examination of Its Appeal.

Online bingo has seen significant growth in recent years. This study sought to increase understanding of this growth by exploring the appeal of online bingo. Our aim was to examine the content of ten online bingo websites in the UK and analyse a qualitative secondary dataset of 12 female bingo players to investigate the appeal of online bingo. Using two distinct data sources allowed us to assess how the key messages online websites are trying to convey compare with actual players’ motivation to play bingo. Our analysis of bingo websites found a common theme where websites were easy to navigate and structured to present a light-hearted, fun, reassuring, social image of gambling. In addition, the design decisions reflected in the bingo sites had the effect of positioning online bingo as a benign, child-like, homely, women-friendly, social activity. Comparison of the website content with our participants’ reasons to play bingo showed congruence between the strategies used by the bingo websites and the motivations of bingo players themselves and the benefits which they seek; suggesting that bingo websites strive to replicate and update the sociability of traditional bingo halls. Online bingo differs from traditional forms of bingo in its ability to be played anywhere and at any time, and its capacity to offer a deeply immersive experience. The potential for this type of online immersion in gambling to lead to harm is only just being investigated and further research is required to understand how the industry is regulated, as well as the effects of online bingo on individual gambling ‘careers.’

A pan-university open online course approach to EOL academic literacy for tertiary students

Canada and the academic world have changed dramatically since the Bilingualism and Biculturalism Reports and the implementation of French immersion programs in Canada a half century ago. From the original theme of bilingualism, equality and the balancing of French and English in Canada, globalization and immigration have produced a different model of bilingualism in a multilingual and multicultural Canada situated in a global English dominant academic network. This paper addresses the academic world dominance of English and the necessity of the majority of the world’s English speakers, who are not native speakers of English but speak English as an “other” language (EOL), as well as the minority of English speakers for whom English is their dominant language, to attain higher levels of academic literacy for the globalized world of academia. All of the approaches for EOL online immersion instruction proposed here can also be exploited to raise the French academic literacy of French immersion students and faculty for tertiary education.

Learning About Technology and Student Affairs: Outcomes of an Online Immersion

Learning About Technology and Student Affairs: Outcomes of an Online Immersion