Psychometric properties of the Brazilian-Portuguese Flow State Scale Short (FSS-BR-S).

"Flow experience" is a term used to describe the state of being fully immersed in what you are doing. The Flow State Scale (FSS-2) was developed to assess how people feel when they are in the flow state while participating in certain sports activities. The goal of this study was to obtain a short adapted version of the FSS-2 for the Brazilian-Portuguese language and for general activities (FSS-BR-S). To do this, we translated it both ways (forwards and backwards) and verified that the translation was accurate. Methods: After getting answers from 396 Brazilian participants, we performed (1) the construct validity of the FSS-BR-S and (2) the psychometric item quality analysis. The confirmatory factorial analysis shows that a FSS-BR-S factorial model is the best fit for the data (χ2 = 44.36, p = .023, df = 27, χ2/df = 1.64, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.98, and RMSEA = 0.04). Reliability tests done in this structure show that the FSS-BR-S (which only has nine items) has good internal consistency. The item quality analysis reveals that its difficulty and differentiating parameters are good for estimating the overall flow state. The test information curve for the short version demonstrates that it is very useful for estimating the flow states of each disposition. Discussion and Conclusions: Based on these findings, we can conclude that the FSS-BR-S has demonstrated sufficient validity to be used with Brazilians.

Psychometric investigation of the gamification Hexad user types scale with Brazilian Portuguese adolescents speakers.

Gamification has been applied in different fields over the last years, impacting the development of technologies, services, and products towards a more game-like world. Albeit its success, some results indicated personal differences influencing the success of its application, leading to the creation of user models (e.g., Hexad), a way to represent user profiles in gamified environments. Even though a great effort has been made to create and discuss instruments to represent these user models, many of them lack investigation into their psychometric properties. At the same time, although gamification can be particularly interesting in engaging adolescents, few attempts analyzed instruments considering this population. Addressing this lack, in this study, we evaluated the psychometric properties of the gamification Hexad scale in Brazilian Portuguese considering a sample ([Formula: see text]) of adolescents aged between 13 and 16 years old. Through a quantitative study (i.e., confirmatory factor analysis and correlation), we analyzed the psychometric properties of the scale and the correlations between user types when using data collected from adolescents. Results demonstrated that the current version of the scale needs improvements to better assess the user types of the Brazilian adolescent population, especially regarding the Disruptor user type. Also, the user types presented fewer correlations when compared with the adult sample. At the same time that the results of this study can be used in the academy and industry as a source of measurement of user types from Brazilian adolescents, it also opens several possibilities for new studies in personalized gamification considering this population.

Advancing school dropout early warning systems: the IAFREE relational model for identifying at-risk students.

Introduction: There is a global effort to address the school dropout phenomenon. The urgency to act on it comes from the harmful evidence that school dropout has on societal and individual levels. Early Warning Systems (EWS) for school dropout at-risk student identification have been developed to anticipate and help schools have a better chance of acting on it. However, several studies point to a doubt that Correct EWS may come too late because they use only publicly available and general student and school information. We hypothesize that having a tool to assess more subjective and inter-relational factors would help anticipate where and when to act to prevent school dropout. This study aimed to develop a multidimensional measure for assessing relational factors for predicting school dropout (SD) risk in the Brazilian context. Methods: We performed several procedures, including (a) the specialized literature review, (b) the item development of the Relational Factors for the Risk of School Dropout Scale (IAFREE in Portuguese), (c) the content validity analysis, (d) a pilot study, and (e) the administration of the IAFREE to a large Brazilian sample of high school and middle school students (N = 15,924). Results: After the theoretical steps, we found content validity for five relational dimensions for SD (Student-School, Student-School Professionals, Student-Family, Student-Community, and Student-Student) that include 12 facets of risk factors. At the empirical stage, confirmatory analysis corroborated the proposed theoretical model with 12 first-order risk factors and 5 s-order dimensions (36 items). Further, through the Item Response Theory analysis, we assessed the individual item parameters of the items, providing a brief measure without losing psychometric quality (IAFREE-12). Discussion: We discuss how this model may fill gaps in Correct EWS models and how to advance it. The IAFREE is a good measure for scholars investigating the risk of SD. These results are important for implementing an early warning system for SD that looks into the complexity of the school dropout phenomenon.

How Personalization Affects Motivation in Gamified Review Assessments.

Personalized gamification aims to address shortcomings of the one-size-fits-all (OSFA) approach in improving students' motivations throughout the learning process. However, studies still focus on personalizing to a single user dimension, ignoring multiple individual and contextual factors that affect user motivation. Unlike prior research, we address this issue by exploring multidimensional personalization compared to OSFA based on a multi-institution sample. Thus, we conducted a controlled experiment in three institutions, comparing gamification designs (OSFA and Personalized to the learning task and users' gaming habits/preferences and demographics) in terms of 58 students' motivations to complete assessments for learning. Our results suggest no significant differences among OSFA and Personalized designs, despite suggesting user motivation depended on fewer user characteristics when using personalization. Additionally, exploratory analyses suggest personalization was positive for females and those holding a technical degree, but negative for those who prefer adventure games and those who prefer single-playing. Our contribution benefits designers, suggesting how personalization works; practitioners, demonstrating to whom the personalization strategy was more or less suitable; and researchers, providing future research directions. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40593-022-00326-x.

Does gender stereotype threat affects the levels of aggressiveness, learning and flow in gamified learning environments?: An experimental study.

Studies in the literature reported several positive benefits provided by the use of technology in online education, especially in the gamified tutoring system. However, despite the benefits of intelligent tutoring systems, recent studies indicate the presence of a gender gap not considered in the construction of the attributes present in the gamified tutoring system. To investigate this impact by observing users' behavioral changes in gamified online educational environments, the present study aims to investigate the effects of the stereotype threats using a quantitative experiment with a Factorial Design in three gamified environments (stereotypical male version, stereotypical female version and control environment). Was conducted an experiment with 150 individuals (high school and undergraduate students) without considering age, ethnicity, or social class. The results show that the participants allocated to the male learning environment present an increase in aggressiveness level. Furthermore, the results also show the stereotypical male and female learning environments increased the participants' performance level. Another finding was that the threatening condition provided a significant increase in the participants' flow level among males subjected to a threatening condition, which did not manifest in the case of females. In addition, this study also observed the effect of the stereotype threat on men and women in the threatening condition by division in the 34-year age group, resulting in a significant increase in the level of flow among men. This study showed previous results show that the gamified environment influences psychological variables as aggressiveness, intellectual performance, and flow level, they raise questions about the direction of these changes and the impact they may have on users' usability and performance in these systems.

Two billion registered students affected by stereotyped educational environments: an analysis of gender-based color bias.

According to the literature, educational technologies present several learning benefits to promote online education. However, there are several associated challenges, and some studies illustrate the limitations in elaborating educational technologies, called Design limitations. This aspect is responsible for unleashing various issues in the learning process, such as gender inequality, creating adverse effects on cognitive, motivational, and behavioral mediators, which opposes the fifth UN's Sustainable Development Goal. Therefore, many studies notice the harmful effects of stereotypes in educational technologies. These effects can be included in the design, like colors or other stereotyped elements, or how the activity is conducted. Based on this, the present study aimed to verify the predominance of color bias in educational technologies available on the WEB. This study developed a computational solution to calculate male and female color bias in the available educational technology web pages. The results suggest the prevalence of the development of educational technologies with a male color bias, with an imbalance among genders, without adequate customization for age groups. Furthermore, some environments, such as Computer Science, present a higher color bias for men when compared to women. Despite both scales being independent, results indicated interesting evidence of a substantial prevalence of colors associated with the male scale. According to the literature, this may be associated with dropout and lack of interest in female students, especially in sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics domains.

Psychometric investigation of the gamification Hexad user types scale in Brazilian Portuguese.

Gamification has become a significant direction in designing technologies, services, products, organizational structures, and any human activities towards being more game-like and consequently being more engaging and motivating. Albeit its success, research indicates that personal differences exist with regards to susceptibility to gamification at large as well as to different types of gamification designs. As a response, models and measurement instruments of user types when it comes to gamification have been developed. One of the most discussed related instruments is the Hexad user types scale. However, there has been paucity of research related to the validity and reliability of the Hexad instrument in general but also of its different formulations and language versions. To face this gap, our study focused on analyzing the psychometric properties of the Hexad scale in Brazilian Portuguese by conducting two confirmatory factor analyses and two multi-group confirmatory factor analyses. The survey was answered by 421 Brazilian respondents (52% self-reported women, 47% self-reported men, 0.5% preferred not to provide their gender, and 0.5% checked the option "other"), from the five Brazilian regions (23 different states and the Federal District), and aged between 10 and 60 years old. Findings support the structural validity of the scale as an oblique model and indicate opportunities for small improvements. Further research, both at academy and practice, may use this study as the source of measurement of user types related to gamification (in Brazilian Portuguese), as well as, as a theoretical and practical source for further studies discussing personalized gamification.

Validation and psychometric properties of the Brazilian-Portuguese dispositional flow scale 2 (DFS-BR).

INTRODUCTION: Flow state is a psychological concept used to describe the optimal engagement in different activities. Therefore, the DFS-2 has been developed as an instrument to measure an individual's dispositional tendency to flow state as a personality trait. OBJECTIVE: Aiming to obtain an adapted version of the DFS-2 for the Brazilian-Portuguese language (DFS-BR) and for general activities, we performed its forward- and backward-translation, and we validated it. METHODS: After gathering answers from 681 Brazilian participants, we performed: (1) the construct validity of the DFS-BR; and (2) the psychometric item quality analysis. RESULTS: the Confirmatory Factorial Analysis (CFA) indicates the best fit for the gathered data is a nine multi-correlated factorial model (χ2/df = 4.23, CFI = 0.94, TLI = 0.93 and RMSEA = 0.069). Reliability tests performed in this structure indicates excellent internal consistency for the DFS-BR. The item quality analysis indicates that its difficulty and discriminating parameters have a good endorsement to estimate the dispositional flow state. Additionally, we proposed and validated a short version of the DFS-BR (composed of only nine items). The validation results indicates good fit (χ2/df = 2.94, CFI = 0.98, TLI = 0.97 and RMSEA = 0.053) and good internal consistency. The Test Information Curve of the short version indicates that it is very informative in the estimation of individual dispositional flow state. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: In view of these results, we conclude that the DFS-BR showed good evidence of its validity to be used with Brazilian people. We also suggest the use of a short version when we need only measure the person's flow state based on the principle of Occam's razor. This principle is supported by the analysis presented in this article.

The effects of using hearing aids and a frequency modulated system on listening effort among adolescents with hearing loss.

Objective: To develop a web-based application for a colour pattern memory recognition task as the secondary task of a dual-task paradigm and to compare the listening effort required by adolescents with hearing loss (HL) under two conditions (HA and HA + FM system), to adolescents with normal hearing (NH).Design: Cohort study. The participants underwent a dual-task paradigm, including the Hearing in Noise Test as the primary task and a colour memory task as the secondary task. A platform, PALETA, was developed to assess the secondary task.Study sample: In total, 31 adolescents were enrolled, of which 13 adolescents had HL and 18 adolescents had NH (mean age, 14 years).Results: Adolescents with NH scored significantly better on the secondary task compared to participants with HL using a HA. However, on analysing response time, no significant differences were observed among the groups.Conclusion: PALETA is proposed as a test procedure for the secondary task. The results revealed that the use of an FM system reduces the listening effort that adolescents with HL deploy to recognise speech in noise, and that listening effort data by number of correct responses is a way of investigating the benefits of using FM system.

GaTO: An Ontological Model to Apply Gamification in Intelligent Tutoring Systems.

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) are concerned with the use of artificial intelligence techniques for performing adaptive tutoring to learners' according to what they know about the domain. Researchers are increasingly interested in applying gamification in e-learning systems to engage students and to drive desired learning behaviors. However, little attention has been drawn to the effective application of gamification in ITS, and how to connect theories of both concepts in a standard and formal way. Moreover, gamified ITS should manipulate a huge amount of knowledge regarding several models, i.e., gamification, domain, student and pedagogical models. Formally connecting such theories as well as representing system's knowledge relies on the use of ontologies. In this paper, we present an ontological model that connects gamification and ITS concepts. Our model takes advantage of ontologies to allow automated reasoning (e.g., on the domain, student, pedagogical or gamification models), to enable interoperability, and create awareness about theories and good practices for the designers of gamified ITS. To evaluate our model, we use an ontology evaluation method based on five knowledge representation roles. We also illustrate how it could support the development of an intelligent authoring tool to design gamified ITS.

Toward Better Outcomes in Audiology Distance Education: An Educational Data Mining Approach.

PURPOSE: This article introduces concepts and a general taxonomy used by the educational data mining (EDM) community, as well as examples of their applications, with the aims of providing audiology educators with a referential basis for developing this area. METHOD: A narrative review was carried out to present an overview of EDM and its main methods. Some of these methods were exemplified with analysis of real data from an Internet-based specialization course on pediatric auditory rehabilitation. RESULTS: The review introduced EDM main concepts and applications and described methods from its area. Real data examples illustrated EDM use to predict interpersonal help-seeking, model interpersonal interaction, analyze students' trajectories within a course's module, and understand how students approached group assignments. Some of the insights provided by EDM to support teaching and learning processes were also described. CONCLUSIONS: EDM methods offer new tools to discover knowledge from digital traces (i.e., logs) and support key stakeholders (students, instructors, or course administrators) to raise awareness about course dynamics. This approach has the potential to foster a better understanding and management of educational processes in audiology distance education.

Dataset of two experiments of the application of gamified peer assessment model into online learning environment MeuTutor.

In this dataset, we present the collected data of two experiments with the application of the gamified peer assessment model into online learning environment MeuTutor to allow the comparison of the obtained results with others proposed models. MeuTutor is an intelligent tutoring system aims to monitor the learning of the students in a personalized way, ensuring quality education and improving the performance of its members (Tenório et al., 2016) [1]. The first experiment evaluated the effectiveness of the peer assessment model through metrics as final grade (result), time to correct the activities and associated costs. The second experiment evaluated the gamification influence into peer assessment model, analyzing metrics as access number (logins), number of performed activities and number of performed corrections. In this article, we present in table form for each metric: the raw data of each treatment; the summarized data; the application results of the normality test Shapiro-Wilk; the application results of the statistical tests T-Test and/or Wilcoxon. The presented data in this article are related to the article entitled "A gamified peer assessment model for on-line learning environments in a competitive context" (Tenório et al., 2016) [1].

High-speed Videolaryngoscopy: Quantitative Parameters of Glottal Area Waveforms and High-speed Kymography in Healthy Individuals.

OBJECTIVES: We conducted a study to obtain quantitative parameters of the vocal dynamic using high-speed videolaryngoscopy and to characterize the vocal fold vibration pattern of healthy individuals by analyzing glottal area waveforms and high-speed kymography. METHODS: Laryngeal images of 45 healthy individuals were captured using high-speed videolaryngoscopy. The open and speed quotients of the glottal area waveforms and high-speed kymography were obtained and statistically analyzed according to the gender of each individual. RESULTS: Glottal area waveforms revealed average values of 0.85 and 1.16 for open and speed quotients, respectively, for women, and 0.70 and 1.19 for men. Using high-speed kymography, quantitative parameters of open and speed quotients for women were 0.62 and 1.02, respectively, and for men were 0.57 and 1.12. By gender, a significant statistical difference emerged for open quotients obtained from both glottal area waveforms (P = 0.004) and high-speed kymography (P = 0.013). CONCLUSION: Obtained by using computational tools specifically for analyzing laryngeal images from high-speed videolaryngoscopy, quantitative parameters of glottal area waveforms and high-speed kymography in healthy individuals provide reference data and normality for future studies.