The effect of the workplace on motivation and demotivation of construction professionals

Investigations have been carried out which suggest that motivation of employees in all industries is affected by the environment or culture in which they work. Research undertaken in Melbourne, Australia investigated the effect of the workplace environment encountered on a construction site on motivation and demotivation of construction professionals. The data collected supported the hypothesis that the environment of a construction site does affect demotivation levels of site personnel. Specifically, several variables were significantly linked to this result, including long hours, chaos, non-recognition for work done and colleagues' aggressive management style. The results provide a valuable basis for indicating how the construction industry can create a more attractive workplace environment for professional site staff.     

Project alliance contract in The Netherlands

A new form of contractual agreement and way of working adapted from other industries, the ‘project alliance’, was researched, developed and is undergoing demonstration to reduce the length of construction time and construction costs. This is achieved through contractor involvement at an early stage of the design process, project participants paid on a net cost basis with participants jointly sharing in the financial success or failure of the project at completion, and the creation of a contractual partnership between all parties.

Cet article porte sur des recherches faites sur une nouvelle forme d'accord contractuel et sur une méthode de travail issue d'autres industries; cette étude intitulée «project alliance» a été affinée et est en cours de démonstration, l'objectif étant de raccourcir la durée des travaux de construction et d'en réduire les coûts. Ces réductions sont possibles, d'une part, grâce à l'implication du contractant au début du processus de conception, les participants au projet étant payés sur la base du coût net et étant solidaires, sur le plan financier, de la réussite ou de l'échec du projet au moment de l'achèvement et, d'autre part, grâce la création d'un partenariat contractuel entre toutes les parties concernées.     

E-learning and face to face mixed methodology: Evaluating effectiveness of e-learning and perceived satisfaction for a microeconomic course using the Moodle platform

The use of Information and Communication Technologies in higher education has proved to be very effective in different educational environments. A less explored area is their application for evaluation on-line, since it is a different process, with specific components. This work describes a methodology that combines the assessment with multiple choice tests through the virtual environment Moodle and the evaluation by using traditional classroom exams. The proposed mixed methodology ELFF (E-Learning and Face to Face) was implemented during the academic year 2010–2011 in the subject Microeconomics: Markets and Competition in the European Union of the double degree in Law and in Business Administration and Management, to assess complementary aspects of the knowledge acquired. The obtained results show that it clearly promotes the participation of students, increases their motivation and improves their competence and so, their performance in terms of qualifications.     

Not just an ego-trip: Exploring backers’ motivation for funding in incentive-based crowdfunding

Incentive-based forms of crowdfunding – such as reward-, equity- and lending-based crowdfunding – are becoming increasingly popular. However, research that studies backers’ motivations for funding in these environments is still in an embryonic state, revealing an inconsistent and narrow picture. The few existing studies are largely guided by the idea that backers are mainly egoistically motivated and do not have prosocial motives. We developed a research model that describes backers’ motivation and conducted an empirical study to examine this model. Results indicate that backers indeed have several self-interest motivations for funding: prospect of a reward; expectation of recognition from others; to lobby a certain project in the hopes of its fruition; and to develop their image. However, some backers are also prosocially motivated in that they develop feelings of liking for a certain venture and/or project team. Furthermore, we found evidence that herding has a significant moderating effect on backers’ reward motivation. Strategic IS researchers as well as crowdfunding practitioners can draw on our findings to systematically design, implement, and evaluate potential incentive systems that respond to reward-, recognition-, lobbying-, image- and liking-motives and thereby attract the crowd more effectively to invest in ventures presented on incentive-based crowdfunding systems.     

Virtual gifting and danmaku: What motivates people to interact in game live streaming?

Virtual gifting and danmaku are important interactive behaviors in the course of game live streaming. Viewers send both gifts and danmaku enthusiastically while watching a game live stream. This study aimed to explore why viewers send danmaku or virtual gifts in the course of game live streaming. Five possible motivations and two types of behavioral patterns were identified. An online survey of game live streaming viewers in China was used to verify whether these motivations had an impact on their interactive behaviors. The results from 352 respondents showed that there were differences in the factors affecting danmaku and gifting interactions. Both the motivations and behavioral patterns had impacts on interactive behaviors such as virtual gifting and danmaku, but the nature of the impact differed.     

Fostering more sustainable food choices: Can Self-Determination Theory help?

Food production, especially meat, is one of the main pressures on the environment and experts agree that diets have to change into a more sustainable direction. The present paper examines whether Self-Determination Theory (SDT) can be of help in fostering more sustainable food choices by taking a closer look at the relationship between food-related types of motivation and different aspects of meat consumption, based on a survey among 1083 consumers in the Netherlands. SDT appeared to be useful for studying why consumers can be motivated to make more sustainable food choices and also why these preferences are not shared by all consumers. Consumers with different types of motivation differed in their level of meat consumption (frequency and portion size), reasons for not frequently eating meat, frequency of buying carefully produced meat, frequency of buying meat substitutes, and preferences in favor or not of plant-based protein products. Internalized motivation was the main factor that made a difference, but intrinsic enjoyment of cooking and eating also played a role. The conclusion is that SDT provides both theoretical and policy-oriented insights into fostering more sustainable food choices.     

Carrot and stick 2.0: The benefits of natural and motivational prosody in computer-assisted learning

For acquiring new skills or knowledge, contemporary learners frequently rely on the help of educational technologies supplementing human teachers as a learning aid. In the interaction with such systems, speech-based communication between the human user and the technical system has increasingly gained importance. Since spoken computer output can take on a variety of forms depending on the method of speech generation and the employment of prosodic modulations, the effects of such auditory variations on the user’s learning achievement require systematic investigation. The experiment reported here examined the specific effects of speech generation method and prosody of spoken system feedback in a computer-supported learning environment, and may serve as validational tool for future investigations of spoken computer feedback effects on learning. Learning performance in a basic cognitive task was compared between users receiving pre-recorded, naturally spoken system feedback with neutral prosody, pre-recorded feedback with motivating (praising or blaming) prosody, or computer-synthesized feedback. The observed results provide empirical evidence that users of technical tutoring systems benefit from pre-recorded, naturally spoken feedback, and do even more so from feedback with motivational prosodic modulations matching their performance success. Theoretical implications and considerations for future implementations of spoken feedback in computer-based educational systems are discussed.     

Motivating and achievement-eliciting pop-ups in online environments: A user experience perspective

The aim of the present research was to develop pop-up windows that motivate users and evoke a positive user experience. Several variants of achievement eliciting pop-ups were designed and tested on a real business-website. A pre-test examined the effectiveness of 24 combinations of pictures and words in eliciting achievement motivation. The strongest effects on user experience were found for pop-ups containing a congruent achievement-related picture and word. The three pop-up variants with the most positive ratings were employed in a subsequent experiment.The main experiment tested the effects of a sequence of three pop-ups that were presented on a website. We had three conditions with different display times of the sequence of pop-ups. They were presented to 78 website-users for either 1, 2 or 3 s, and compared to a control group on subsequent motivation-related ratings. The results demonstrated that the website was stronger associated with achievement motivation if pop-ups were presented for only 1 or 2 s, compared with 3 s or the control group. This indicates that short presentations of pop-ups could activate achievement motivation in users of learning and business websites. It could be an important design guideline to flash shorter pop-ups that make online environments more appealing to users.     

Intrinsic motivation and human-centred design

This essay seeks to clarify the paradigm shift from object-centred to human-centred research and design. It suggests abandoning the technological determinism that underlies the industrial era conceptions of human–machine interactions, which still informs much of current human factors or ergonomic research and making room for models of human–machine interactions that are derived from the human use of language, conversation and play. The essay demonstrates the significance of this shift by contrasting two ways users account for their involvement with artifacts: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. It contends that intrinsic motivation largely escapes the traditionally object-centred scientific research methods. To inquire into the use of intrinsically motivating artifacts and aid the design of artifacts that have a chance to be intrinsically motivating, therefore, demands taking a different epistemological path, one that acknowledges the crucial use of language. This essay outlines such a path, pursues it and ends with practical suggestions for the design of artifacts that enable intrinsically motivating interfaces to arise.     

Short-term outcomes of a motivation-enhancing approach to DUI intervention

Objective

We compared a group-delivered, theory-based, motivation-enhancing program (PRIME For Life^® – PFL, n = 450) to an intervention as usual (IAU, n = 72).

Method

Individuals convicted of a substance related offense in North Carolina, typically first offense alcohol and drug-impaired driving, participated in a PFL or IAU group. We compare the interventions on program satisfaction and changes made from preintervention to postintervention, and examined the moderating effects of demographics and alcohol dependence level.

Results

When significant, findings varied in magnitude from small to medium effects. Participants in both interventions showed intentions to use statistically significantly less alcohol and drugs in the future compared to their previous use, and differences between the groups were not statistically significant. Otherwise, findings favored PFL. PFL exhibited greater benefit than IAU on understanding tolerance, perceived risk for addiction, problem recognition, and program satisfaction. Additionally, IAU perceived less risk for negative consequences postintervention than they had at preintervention. Moderation analyses showed that the between-condition findings occurred regardless of gender, age, education, and number of alcohol dependence indicators. Additionally, younger people and those with more dependence indicators – groups of particular concern – showed the greatest change.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that a motivation-enhancing approach can be effective in producing short-term change in factors that can help facilitate and sustain behavioral change. This is consistent with previous research on the use of motivational approaches, and extends such findings to suggest promise in group-based settings and with people across demographic categories and dependence levels. Future research should focus on larger studies looking at long-term behavioral change, including recidivism.