Out of sight, but not out of mind: a case study of the collaborative development of a university-wide orientation resource for online students.

The global online education sector has been rising rapidly, particularly during and after the events of 2020, and is becoming mainstream much sooner than expected. Despite this, research studies report higher levels of perceived isolation, difficulties with engagement, and higher attrition rates in online compared to equivalent on-campus programs. Reasons include restrictions to the type of institutional support accessible by online students, and the lack of comprehensiveness of orientation resources. This paper describes the collaborative efforts by a cross-faculty academic team, supported by a community of practice, to create a university-wide online orientation resource-the Monash Online Learning Hub (MOLH). The development of the MOLH involved multiple phases, including an analysis of current practice, resource design and content creation, formative evaluation by staff and students, and successful integration into the university's mainstream student orientation platform for widescale implementation. The methods adopted were varied, and involved generating both qualitative and quantitative data across multiple phases of development from online education experts at the University, that culminated in the gradual building and refinement of the MOLH. Final outcomes, implications and lessons learned are also discussed in this paper.

Ecological momentary assessment of drinking in young adults: An investigation into social context, affect and motives.

INTRODUCTION: Daily assessment studies have examined how day specific factors, such as affect, social context, and drinking motives, alongside dispositional drinking motives, predict young adults' drinking. However, these studies did not examine how the interplay between drinking motives (dispositional and day specific) and multiple features of the drinking situation predict drinking with respect to either the initial decision to drink or the quantity of alcohol consumed. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) via smartphone technology, enables us to address this gap by evaluating to what extent dispositional drinking motives and day specific factors are associated with: a) the initiation of drinking episodes and; b) the quantity of alcohol consumed. METHODS: Participants were 83 young adults (63 female) aged 18 to 30 (M = 21.42, SD = 3.09) who resided in Australia and participated in an EMA study for 21 days via their smartphone. On a daily basis, participants received three random-interval prompts that measured momentary affect, drinking motives, social context (e.g., people present in the social context and if these individuals are drinking), and alcohol use. RESULTS: A multilevel hurdle analysis found that young adults were more likely to both initiate a drinking episode and consume a higher quantity of alcohol if they were surrounded by other people who were drinking and were motivated to drink to conform to the reference group. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first of its kind to demonstrate that different drinking behaviors (i.e., initiation and quantity of alcohol consumed) are associated with a similar set of predictors. Drinking-based interventions that address these risk factors could effectively reduce risky drinking as it would intervene on both the decision to initiate alcohol use, and the decision to continue drinking.

A Mobile App-Based Intervention for Depression: End-User and Expert Usability Testing Study.

BACKGROUND: Despite the growing number of mental health apps available for smartphones, the perceived usability of these apps from the perspectives of end users or health care experts has rarely been reported. This information is vital, particularly for self-guided mHealth interventions, as perceptions of navigability and quality of content are likely to impact participant engagement and treatment compliance. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to conduct a usability evaluation of a personalized, self-guided, app-based intervention for depression. METHODS: Participants were administered the System Usability Scale and open-ended questions as part of a semistructured interview. There were 15 participants equally divided into 3 groups: (1) individuals with clinical depression who were the target audience for the app, (2) mental health professionals, and (3) researchers who specialize in the area of eHealth interventions and/or depression research. RESULTS: The end-user group rated the app highly, both in quantitative and qualitative assessments. The 2 expert groups highlighted the self-monitoring features and range of established psychological treatment options (such as behavioral activation and cognitive restructuring) but had concerns that the amount and layout of content may be difficult for end users to navigate in a self-directed fashion. The end-user data did not confirm these concerns. CONCLUSIONS: Encouraging participant engagement via self-monitoring and feedback, as well as personalized messaging, may be a viable way to maintain participation in self-guided interventions. Further evaluation is necessary to determine whether levels of engagement with these features enhance treatment effects.

Dissociation between wanting and liking for alcohol and caffeine: A test of the Incentive Sensitisation Theory.

Limited human studies have directly tested the dissociation between wanting and liking with human substance users, a core tenet of the Incentive Sensitisation Theory (IST). The aim of this study is to test the dissociation between wanting and liking in humans across two commonly used licit substances, alcohol and caffeine. The STRAP-R (Sensitivity To Reinforcement of Addictive and other Primary Rewards) questionnaire was administered to 285 alcohol users (mean age=33.30, SD= 8.83) and 134 coffee users (mean age=33.05, SD=8.10) ranging in their levels of substance use to assess wanting and liking. Findings showed that in high risk alcohol users wanting may drive alcohol consumption more so than liking, compared with low risk alcohol users. However, wanting and liking did not significantly dissociate as alcohol consumption increased. These findings partially support IST. Additionally, IST was not supported in coffee users. It is possible that caffeine functions differently at the neurological level compared with alcohol, perhaps explaining the lack of dissociation emerging in coffee users as caffeine use increased. Nevertheless, the current study makes several contributions to IST research. Future studies should focus on utilising the STRAP-R with a clinically dependent sample to test the dissociation between wanting and liking.