The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the persuasive effects personal stories have on the university recruitment process. Specifically, this study explored how Fisher's (1984) concepts of narrative probability and fidelity influenced Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behavior model using a four-staged quasi-experimental study. Jablin's (1982) anticipatory socialization phase of organizational assimilation theory acted as a context for this applied dissertation. This study evolved over four stages while working with the North Dakota State University Office of Admission. The first stage provided qualitative data exploring students' opinions of using story-based recruitment material. Focus groups also revealed what types of stories would be helpful for prospective students during the college admission process. Stage two developed and tested the narrative probability and fidelity scales based on Fisher's (1984) narrative paradigm. These newly created scales were used to determine the level of narrative probability and narrative fidelity in each of the experimental conditions. Stage three consisted of the creation and testing of the recruitment videos used in each experimental condition. The final stage tested the story-based recruitment and control videos on prospective students visiting North Dakota State University. The results of this dissertation were obtained using a series of ANOVAs, regression analyses, and path model testing techniques. Overall, the results suggested that high levels of narrative probability and narrative fidelity do positively influence prospective students' attitudes toward choosing a university and have a less powerful, but still positive, influence on their subjective norms beliefs and perceived behavioral control of choosing a university. The theory of planned behavior model was also supported by this data. The results of each stage of this study produced theoretical and practical implications. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of the results, implications, limitations, and future research opportunities.

The concept of augmented reality has existed since the 60’s. In this thesis it has been investigated if navigation using a mobile device would benefit, from a usability perspective, if the navigational data were presented using augmented reality instead of a standardized map. The usability principles from which the applications were evaluated are learnability, user satisfaction, efficiency and effectivity. An AR prototype was developed and tested against a standard map, in the form of Google Maps, both used on a smart phone. The experiments were performed using think aloud during the tests and questionnaires before and after to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The experiment was performed using possible users of AR as test subjects. The results were very similar for both applications but in favor of Google Maps. The author reflects on the results and the method and provides different situations where one might be better than the other.

Being an architect means dealing with data. All architectural thinking—whether it is done with pen and paper or the most advanced modeling softwares—starts with data, conveying information about the world, and ultimately outputs data, in the form of drawings or models. Reality is neither the input nor the output. All architectural work is abstractions of reality, mediated by data. What if data, the abstractions of reality that are crucial for our work as architects, was to be used more literally? Could data actually be turned into architecture? Could data be turned into, for example, a volume, a texture, or an aperture? What qualities would such an architecture have?  These questions form the basis of this thesis project. The topic was investigated first by developing a simple design method for generating architectural forms from data, through an iterative series of tests. Then, the design method was applied to create a speculative design proposal for a combined data center and museum, located in Södermalm, Stockholm.

This thesis contains three chapters, each of which covers a different topic in experimental economics.<br><br>The first chapter investigates power and power analysis in economics experiments. Power is the probability of detecting an effect when a true effect exists, which is an important but under-considered concept in empirical research. Power analysis is the process of selecting the number of observations in order to avoid issues with low power. However, it is often not clear ex-ante what the required parameters for a power analysis, like the effect size and standard deviation, should be. <br>This chapter considers the use of Quantal Choice/Response (QR) simulations for ex-ante power analysis, as it maps related data-sets into predictions for novel environments. <br>The QR can also guide optimal design decisions, both ex-ante as well as ex-post for conceptual replication studies. This chapter demonstrates QR simulations on a wide variety of applications related to power analysis and experimental design.<br><br>The second chapter considers a question of interest to computer scientists, information technology and security professionals. How do people distribute defenses over a directed network attack graph, where they must defend a critical node? Decision-makers are often subject to behavioral biases that cause them to make sub-optimal defense decisions. Non-linear probability weighting<br>is one bias that may lead to sub-optimal decision-making in this environment. An experimental test provides support for this conjecture, and also other empirically important biases such as naive diversification and preferences over the spatial timing of the revelation of an overall successful defense. <br><br>The third chapter analyzes how individuals resolve an exploration versus exploitation trade-off in a laboratory experiment. The experiment implements the single-agent exponential bandit model. The experiment finds that subjects respond in the predicted direction to changes in the prior belief, safe action, and discount factor. However, subjects also typically explore less than predicted. A structural model that incorporates risk preferences, base rate neglect/conservatism, and non-linear probability weighting explains the empirical findings well. <br>

Syftet med föreliggande studie är att undersöka om en manipulation av mekanismerna moraliskt rättfärdigande, språklig omskrivning och förskjutning av ansvar, från Banduras (1999) teori om moraliskt frikopplande, påverkar bedömningen av oetiska beteenden. I studien användes en flerfaktoriell experimentell design. 195 försökspersoner fördelades slumpmässigt till åtta olika grupper (en kontrollgrupp och sju experimentgrupper). Försökspersonerna fick läsa texter om två oetiska beteenden, tortyr och mobbning. Åtta versioner av texterna användes, en utan manipulation av mekanismerna (kontrollbetingelse), tre versioner där respektive mekanism manipulerades enskilt, tre versioner där mekanismerna manipulerades i parvisa kombinationer och en sista version där alla tre mekanismerna manipulerades samtidigt. Försökspersonerna fick sedan bedöma hur acceptabla/oacceptabla beteendena var. Datan analyserades via två tre-vägs variansanalyser med bedömning av tortyr respektive mobbning som beroendevariabler.  Resultaten visar att en manipulation av mekanismen moraliskt rättfärdigande har en stark signifikant effekt på bedömningen av mobbning och en medelstark effekt på bedömningen av tortyr. Resultaten visar även att en manipulation av mekanismen förskjutning av ansvar har en signifikant men svag effekt på både bedömningen av tortyr och mobbning. Vad gäller mobbning bedömde deltagarna beteendet som mindre acceptabelt med manipulation än utan manipulation. Språklig omskrivning hade inte enskilt någon effekt vare sig i tortyr eller mobbningsbeteendet. Däremot uppvisades en signifikant interaktionseffekt mellan moraliskt frikopplande och språklig omskrivning vad gäller beteendet tortyr.  Resultaten visar att en manipulation av mekanismer för moraliskt frikopplande påverkar bedömningen av oetiskt beteende. / The purpose of the present study is to examine whether a manipulation of the mechanisms moral justification, euphemistic labeling and displacement of responsibility, from Banduras theory (1999) of moral disengagement, influences the assessment of unethical behavior. The study utilized a factorial experimental design. 195 participants were randomly assigned to eight different groups (one control group and seven experimental groups). The participants read a text about two unethical behaviors, torture and bullying. Eight versions of the texts were used, one without manipulation of any independent variable (control condition), three with manipulation on each mechanism, three with manipulation were made in pairs and the last version where all three mechanisms were manipulated toghether. The participants then got to determine whether the the behavoir is accepteble or unacceptable. The data were analyzed via Anova with assessment of torture and bullying as dependent variables. The result show that a manipulation of the mechanism of moral justification has a strong significant effect on the assessment of bullying and a medium effect on the assessment of torture. The result also show that a manipulation of the mechanism displacement of responsibility has a significant but weak effect on both the assessment of torture and bullying. Regarding bullying, participants rated the behavior as less acceptable with manipulation than without manipulation. Euphemistic labeling alone had no effect on eighter torture or bullying. However a significant interaction effect was found between moral justification and euphemistic labeling regarding to the behavior of torture.

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<p> The proliferation of digital educational applications (apps) has revolutionized the pedagogical landscape for students and instructors, both within and beyond the confines of traditional classrooms. Educational apps offer a variety of features that can help students learn more effectively, including personalized instruction and real-time feedback. However, some studies have found that students may not be engaging with the apps regularly or for extended periods of time. This lack of engagement can limit the apps’ potential to improve student learning. Consequently, researchers have investigated methods to enhance students’ app engagement, including the use of digital nudges. Digital nudging is a strategy that proposes utilizing small, non-intrusive cues that capitalize on individuals’ cognitive biases to influence their behavior.</p> <p><br></p> <p>This dissertation makes a significant contribution to ongoing efforts by examining the effectiveness of nudge-based digital interventions in improving students’ engagement with the CourseMIRROR educational app. CourseMIRROR is an educational mobile app that prompts students to reflect on the interesting and confusing aspects of lectures throughout a semester. The CourseMIRROR app uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms to 1) scaffold the students while generating reflections and 2) summarize the students’ submitted reflections. This study focuses on designing digital nudges to improve students’ cognitive and behavioral engagement with specific features of the app that are crucial to achieving its primary purposes. These primary purposes include 1) facilitating students to submit reflections, 2) enabling students to view the reflection summary interface, and 3) scaffolding students to write in-depth and comprehensive reflections. The study consists of three experiments investigating the effectiveness of these digital nudges for improving student engagement with the CourseMIRROR app. </p> <p><br></p> <p>For this dissertation, I conducted three experiments by implementing the CourseMIRROR app in multiple sections of a first-year engineering course at Purdue University over a semester. <em><strong>Experiment 1</strong></em> investigated the impact of social comparison nudge and neutral reminder nudge to increase students’ reflection submissions by using the app. Students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: social comparison nudge, neutral reminder nudge, or baseline (no nudge). The social comparison nudge involved reminding and showing peers’ behavior through their reflection submissions, and the neutral reminder nudge involved sending automated reminders to students to submit their reflections. The results indicated that social comparison and neutral reminder nudges were effective in increasing reflection submissions compared to the baseline condition. However, the social comparison nudge was slightly more effective in improving the number of reflection submissions than the neutral reminder nudge. Also, the nudge interventions became effective in increasing the reflection submissions by refocusing the students’ attention as time progressed in the semester. </p> <p><br></p> <p><em><strong>Experiment 2</strong></em> explored the impact of summary reminder nudges and interface nudges to increase students’ visits to the reflection summary interface in the app. Students were randomly assigned to summary reminder nudge, interface nudge, or baseline conditions. The summary reminder nudge involved reminding students to visit the reflection summary interface in the app. The interface nudge involved making the summary available lecture more prominent to draw students’ attention to the reflection summary interface. The result revealed that summary reminder and interface nudges did not significantly improve the number of students’ visits to the reflection summary interface. Also, for all conditions, students’ visits to reflection summary interface decreased over time as time progressed. </p> <p><br></p> <p><em><strong>Experiment 3</strong></em> examined the impact of scaffolding and throttling mindless nudges on promoting more comprehensive and lengthier reflection submissions. Students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: scaffolding nudge, throttling mindless nudge, or baseline. The scaffolding nudge involved providing students with real-time feedback to guide their reflection writing, while the throttling mindless nudge involved giving a pause to re-think if they want to move forward to the next question or revise their reflection in the application. Overall, the results showed that scaffolding and throttling mindless nudges effectively promoted more comprehensive and lengthier reflection submissions over the semester and within each time. However, students’ reflections in all conditions remained either consistent or decreased in reflection text length and specificity score over time in a semester.  </p> <p><br></p> <p>The study’s results indicate that digital nudges can effectively enhance students’ engagement with educational applications, especially in reflection activities using CourseMIRROR. These findings provide valuable insights into designing and implementing digital nudges in educational apps and evaluating their impact on student engagement. Future research should build on these results to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the potential of digital nudges to support student engagement in educational technology settings.</p>

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