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Facebook is in the forefront when it comes to technical development and allowing new and faster communication opportunities. In this study, one of the latest technical additions on Facebook is being researched; namely the reaction-button. The aim of this paper is to understand the usage of the reaction-button as well as its impact on interpersonal communications, immediacy and speed in society. The research focuses on six different themes; Culture of Speed, Social acceleration, Space and time, Media richness, Immediacy as well as Telemediation. Empirical material have been collected through qualitative Think-aloud interviews and quantitative content analysis. The research is, among other things, questioning the actual need of a reaction-button and whether it is used the way it is intended. Furthermore, it presents the problematics within a potential harm on social relationships, a loss in communicative value and an inactive behavior caused by the obsession about speeding up online social interactions.

This thesis discusses commensality as a significant social activity, that helps to maintain and strengthen social bonds. It also examines the sense of touch as a communication channel, and provides an insight to how it can be used to communicate affect. Touch as contextualized medium and its relevance to interaction design is investigated. Based on studies made in psychology, physiology, sociology and communication it aims to find an answer to the question: ”How may we create togetherness -with the help of an interactive device- between loved ones separated by distance during dining, through remote communication?” In order to meet the objectives of the above question this research followed the Research Through Design methodology, with series of workshops and prototyping sessions.

This dissertation is a collection of poems preceded by a critical preface. The preface considers emotional immediacy—or the idea of enacting in readers an emotional drama that appears genuine and simultaneous with the speaker's experience—and furthermore argues against the common criticism that accessibility means simplicity, ultimately reifying the importance of accessibility in contemporary poetry. The preface is divided into an introduction and three sections, each of which explores a different technique for creating immediacy, exemplified by Robert Lowell’s "Waking in the Blue,” Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus,” and Louise Gluck's "Eros." The first section examines "Waking in the Blue,” and the poem's systematic inflation and deflation of persona as a means of revealing complexity a ambiguity. The second section engages in a close reading of "Lady Lazarus,” arguing that the poem's initially deliberately false erodes into sincerity, creating immediacy. The third section considers the continued importance of persona beyond confessionalism, and argues that in "Eros," it is the apparent lack of drama, and the focus on the cognitive process, that facilitates emotional immediacy.

The role of teacher immediacy and its impact upon student learning within the traditional classroom has been established within the instructional communication discipline in the past 30 years. In recent years, with the advent of computer-mediated distance education (i.e. online courses), some researchers have attempted to apply the same theories and measures of concepts without making the distinction between actual teacher behavioral indicants of immediacy and student perceptions of immediacy, nor recognizing that there may be a different number of variables involved between a single lesson presented online and an entire course presented over a period of time. Building upon previous models, the Short-Term Motivational Model of Learning was proposed and tested, using survey results from 229 undergraduate students who completed an online lesson presented in six different formats, and who were tested for learning outcomes. In comparison to a direct measure of learning outcomes (number of correct test answers), it was found that the Perceived Cognitive Learning Scale correlated highly with the direct measure, while the Learning Loss Scale did not. Three of the three study hypotheses were supported. Hypothesis one proposed that higher student perception of immediacy would correlate with higher student state motivation and was supported. Hypothesis two proposed that higher student trait motivation would correlate with higher student state motivation and was supported. Hypothesis three proposed that higher student state motivation would correlate with higher student cognitive learning. Student cognitive learning determined through three measures: the Perceived Cognitive Learning Scale, pretest-posttest scores differences, and the Learning Loss Scale. Using the Perceived Cognitive Learning Scale, hypothesis three was supported. Using the pretest-posttest scores differences, hypothesis three was supported weakly. Using the Learning Loss Scale, hypothesis three was also supported weakly. In testing whether teacher behavioral indicants of immediacy, student perception of immediacy and student trait motivation would explain significant variance in student state motivation in a single lesson presented online, trait motivation failed to be a predictor. Subsequently, in testing whether all of these variables would explain significant variance in student cognitive learning (and using each of the three measures of student cognitive learning), trait motivation again failed to be a predictor. In general the results support the idea that perceived learning is affected by the degree of motivation as affected by immediacy. While an attempt to vary degrees of immediacy was not fully successful, results also suggest that adding audio to online lessons may not produce significant gains in learning when compared to text-only presentations.

Motivation in the classroom: Teachers' perspectives on what motivation is; how you attain and sustain it Daniel Kvick 1. Abstract The aim of this essay was to explore the issue of motivation and gain better understanding of what motivation in the school environment is all about.  Is it just a term we use in our everyday life without putting any meaning into what we really mean by it? I have centered my work around the following questions:  What is motivation in school?  What makes for a motivating school task?  How do teachers best motivate their students?  What motivates the teachers?  Why is it that some students just can’t be motivated?  The research for this essay was carried out in two ways.  The first part was to complete an online survey, which was then e-mailed to several teachers in the Laholm area.  The second part consisted of a series of interviews with four different teachers which centered around the questions stated above.  The teachers, who were between the age of 31-51, were all working at Osbecksgymnasiet in Laholm (Upper-Secondary-school) and were all teaching different sets of subjects (English, French, Maths, Swedish, Physical education, and Sciences).  Interviewing teachers from a variety of subjects rather that just focusing on English gave me an opportunity to compare attitudes towards the different subjects.  The interviews were carried out in the school, and varied between 44 minutes to 1 hour and 24 minutes Keywords: motivation, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, immediacy

S’efforcer d’être simple, telle est l’ambition constante qui anime Jules Renard. Contraint à la simplicité par la pauvreté de son imagination, qui le conduit à privilégier la « chose vue » et à puiser à la source étroite du quotidien vécu, il ne la subit pas pour autant, mais fait de l’effacement et de la réduction le cœur de son art littéraire. La première partie de la thèse envisage le questionnement théorique et esthétique de l’écrivain dans le champ littéraire de la fin de siècle. Si Renard hérite en partie des modèles classique et réaliste, sa simplicité est surtout construite en réaction à l’ambition totalisante du réalisme et de naturalisme, qui, recouvrant le réel de langage, l’étouffe. Pour résoudre la crise générale de la mimèsis, l’auteur entend rétablir un lien de motivation entre le langage et le réel. La deuxième partie s’attache à déterminer les aspects rhétoriques de l’écriture du simple, montrant que la simplicité s’inscrit également au cœur de la poétique de Jules Renard, déterminant des choix génériques et narratifs, et nécessitant un double mouvement de réduction et de concentration, qui n’est pas sans écueils. La simplicité n’est pas pour autant un thème de prédilection qui se développerait de manière linéaire chez l’auteur, elle oriente une dynamique, ouvrant un cheminement dialectique, difficile et peuplé d’obstacles. La dernière partie en montre la dimension morale, pratique et philosophique. La simplicité n’est pas pour Renard une donnée immédiate de la conscience, mais une valeur à construire et à défendre sur le terrain politique, qui s’enracine dans un terreau philosophique fondé sur la notion d’immédiateté. / Jules Renard’s ceaseless ambition is to try and be simple. Although his lack of imagination, which leads him to favour things that he saw and to draw on the sometimes narrow everyday life, reduces him to simplicity, he does not passively receive it but on the contrary ensures that blurring and reduction are key principles of his literary art. The first part of this thesis tackles with the writer’s theoretical and aesthetic questioning, understood in the literary landscape of the late fin de siècle. Even if Renard partly inherits the classic and realistic models, his simplicity is mostly built against realism’s and naturalism’s totalizing ambition, which suffocates the reality by covering it up with words. So as to solve the general crisis of the mimesis, the writer intends to build a bridge between language and reality. The second part of this work tries to single out the theoretical characteristics of the simple style. It shows that simplicity stands at the very center of Renard’s poetics, underlies choices related to the genre or the narration and implies both reduction and concentration, which is not easy to fulfill. Simplicity is not, on the other hand, a favourite topic with a linear development, but it triggers off a dynamic, dialectical and difficult process. The last part reveals its moral, practical and philosophical aspect. For simplicity is not for Renard an immediate matter of consciousness but a value which is to build and to defend politically. It is philosophically rooted in immediacy.

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In a regular classroom setting, a more emotionally expressive teacher has been shown to be positively correlated with learning outcomes and task motivation among the students. Would this also be the case if the teacher were a robot? This study investigates how the facial expressions of an anthropomorphic robot affect learning outcomes and task motivation in adult learners studying a second language by setting up an experiment using the Furhat robot. The same interactions were carried out by an experiment group and a control group. The results show no increase in performance in either learning outcomes or task performance. Future studies are suggested to investigate other potential factors of why robots outperform regular computers in these settings. / I ett vanligt klassrumssammanhang har det visats att lärare som visar känslouttryck har en positiv korrelation med läranderesultat och motivation hos studenterna. Skulle detta också vara fallet om läraren var en robot? Den här studien undersöker hur ansiktsuttrycken hos en människoliknande robot påverkar läranderesultat och motivation hos vuxna studenter som lär sig ett andraspråk genom ett experiment med roboten Furhat. Samma interaktioner genomfördes av både en experimentgrupp och en kontrollgrupp. Resultaten visar ingen ökning av varken läranderesultat eller motivation. Framtida studier föreslås att undersöka andra potentiella faktorer som bidrar till att robotar utpresterar människor i dessa sammanhang.

The thesis deals with verbal communication skills based on a respectful and partnership approach to students, through a multi-case study of two selected teachers at lower-secondary schools. The theoretical part is devoted to human communication, especially in terms of verbal and also marginally in terms of nonverbal. Introduces and describes the principles and tools of respectful, partnership and immediate communication. It draws attention to the possible effects of the disrespectful and authoritative approach of teachers on pupils' problematic behaviour and their ability to learn. The practical part, through a questionnaire survey and analysis of video recordings of lessons, presents the results of the influence of a respectful and partnership approach on the overall atmosphere in the classroom. In reference to the theoretical part of the work, it provides examples of transcribed monologues and dialogues containing elements of a partnership and respectful approach. Based on the triangulation of data, it was found out which elements of respectful and partner communication teachers use in their practice, and it was also proven that the application of these elements positively affects the atmosphere in school classrooms. Finally, the analysis of the questionnaire survey confirmed that teachers...