The independent style of scanning and payment at self-service checkouts (SCOs) has resulted in areas for concern. The reduction of employee involvement may reduce the social presence perceived at a SCO. Social presence is when a user experiences the perception that there is another intelligence or entity within their environment (Short, William & Christie, 1976). If customers are not influenced by the social presence of the employees at a SCO then it may affect their behaviour. Using a mixed methods approach, with a combination of qualitative and quantitative data gathering, this thesis investigated dishonest behaviours at self-service checkouts and the effects of a social presence on consumer behaviour. The overreaching research question then guiding this dissertation is: What effect does a social presence have on thefts at self-service checkouts and can social presence be effectively implemented via technology? Three exploratory qualitative (Studies 1-3) and two empirical studies (Studies 4-5) were conducted to investigate issues surrounding thefts at SCO with reference to social presence. Study 1 consisted of in-depth observations of customers within supermarkets to gain an understanding of everyday behaviours associated with self-service checkouts. Both customers and staff seemed to be frustrated at the amount of times the technology did not work properly and the customer would appear disadvantaged when they required assistance. With an understanding of the salient factors and behaviours associated with self-service checkouts, Study 2 then explored SCO staff perceptions of thefts at self-service checkouts (Creighton et al., 2015). Qualitative semi-structured interviews were used to investigate the perceived influence of social presence at self-service checkouts by staff and its perceived effect on dishonest customer behaviour. Twenty-six self-service checkout staff took part in a series of semi-structured interviews to describe customer behaviours with self-service. With respect to actual physical social presence, such as the recognised presence of an employee, staff reported that more customer thefts occurred when the self-service checkouts were busy and their social presence was reduced. To further explore social presence within a retail environment and validate the perceptions from SCO Staff, Study 3 investigated the role of the security guard in terms of their social presence and explored their perceptions of thefts at self-service checkouts. Interviews with 6 security guards were conducted to determine factors surrounding theft as their role is to monitor this type of dishonest behavior. There was an overall agreement from security guards that there were more thefts at self-service checkouts when the store was busy and that there were more thefts at self-service checkouts overall, compared to traditional manned checkouts. The first empirical study (Study 4), consisting of 2 Experiments, considered the effects of a social presence within a self-service checkout interface on user behaviour. This study examined whether a social presence in the form of a computer designed onscreen agent at a simulated SCO, with design features varying in ‘humanness’, i.e. agents that displayed more or less-human-like features (eyes in Experiment 1, and human shapes in Experiment 2), would have an effect on opportunistic behaviour (cheating) in a simulated checkout scenario. Ninety-one participants interacted with a simulated SCO while their eye movements were tracked via a Tobii TX300 eye-tracker. Hypotheses that predicted a social presence would receive attention and result in fewer instances of theft when integrated within an interface were supported, suggesting that implementing an agent designed to suggest some level of humanness e.g. with eyes, within a SCO interface may reduce levels of theft as customers are likely to notice it. However, Study 4 showed mixed results for the effects of varying agent appearance alone. Research has shown that social presence can also be induced by varying agent behaviour (Burgoon et al., 2000). Study 5 thus varied interactivity (i.e. personal vs impersonal nature) of the agent via voice implementation on the SCO, using the same agent as in Study 4 (Experiment 2). The research highlights the need for the current designs of SCO to be updated to reduce operational issues which could be contributing to thefts occurring at SCOs. It is also concluded that further research is needed on the effects of interactivity and agent presence during a SCO interaction to explore dimensions of social presence and how they are being experienced by the user, which may ultimately lead to a reduction in thefts at SCOs.

Este trabalho de tese apresenta o Modelo Presença Plus (PPlus) para identificação de pistas textuais denotadoras de presença social em interações discursivas feitas por alunos em fóruns e chats educacionais. O grau de presença social (PS) é um indicativo de como os sujeitos interagem entre si e com o ambiente de aprendizagem; sendo considerado, na literatura, significativo para o desenvolvimento de relacionamentos e fortalecimento de sentimento de pertencimento no grupo. O trabalho se baseia na vertente Pragmática da Linguística, campo que enfatiza a importância de se considerar o contexto de produção dos eventos comunicativos e a dinâmica dialógica entre os interlocutores. Considerando que o mapeamento das interações dos discentes para detectar e avaliar seu grau de presença pode se constituir uma tarefa complexa e morosa para tutores de cursos a distância, desenvolveu-se um software para realizar o processamento automático das mensagens eletrônicas visando torná-lo uma funcionalidade a ser adicionada a ambientes virtuais de ensino e aprendizagem (AVEAs). Apesar de alguns impasses referentes, particularmente, aos aspectos sintáticos dos textos, os resultados obtidos no processamento, por lexicometria, das postagens foram satisfatoriamente semelhantes aos levantados na análise manual. O modelo PPlus e a escala de graus de PS foram também testados em um segundo ambiente disponibilizado na plataforma Moodle, tendo apresentado resultados equivalentes. A sondagem com professores e tutores de cursos a distância forneceu dados que corroboram a proposta de uma ferramenta a ser inserida em AVEAs de modo a facilitar o acompanhamento de estados afetivos, grau de envolvimento e interação entre os participantes no e com o ambiente. / This thesis presents Presence Plus (PPLus), a model for identifying indicators of social presence in text-based interactions made by students in educational forums and chats. The degree of social presence (SP) can be an indicator of how individuals interact among themselves and with the learning environment, and is considered by the literature to be relevant for the development of relationships and the strengthening of the sense of belonging in the group. This study is based on Pragmatics, an area of Linguistics that emphasizes the importance of the context in communicative events and the dialogic dynamics among speakers. Considering that mapping students’ interactions, as well as detecting and evaluating their degree of SP, may be a complex and time-consuming task in distance learning tutoring, a software was developed to do the automatic processing of posts, aiming at making it a possible functionality in virtual learning environments (VLEs). Despite the few conflicting results, mostly related to textual syntactic relations, data from processing tests using lexicometrics were satisfactorily similar to those obtained by manual analysis. The PPlus model and the SP scale were also tested in a different course in the Moodle platform. Results from this experiment presented equally positive data. Feedback from the questionnaire answered by teachers and tutors working in distance learning courses support the proposal of a tool that may facilitate their assessment of affective states, involvement and text-based interaction dents within the environment.

Este trabalho de tese apresenta o Modelo Presença Plus (PPlus) para identificação de pistas textuais denotadoras de presença social em interações discursivas feitas por alunos em fóruns e chats educacionais. O grau de presença social (PS) é um indicativo de como os sujeitos interagem entre si e com o ambiente de aprendizagem; sendo considerado, na literatura, significativo para o desenvolvimento de relacionamentos e fortalecimento de sentimento de pertencimento no grupo. O trabalho se baseia na vertente Pragmática da Linguística, campo que enfatiza a importância de se considerar o contexto de produção dos eventos comunicativos e a dinâmica dialógica entre os interlocutores. Considerando que o mapeamento das interações dos discentes para detectar e avaliar seu grau de presença pode se constituir uma tarefa complexa e morosa para tutores de cursos a distância, desenvolveu-se um software para realizar o processamento automático das mensagens eletrônicas visando torná-lo uma funcionalidade a ser adicionada a ambientes virtuais de ensino e aprendizagem (AVEAs). Apesar de alguns impasses referentes, particularmente, aos aspectos sintáticos dos textos, os resultados obtidos no processamento, por lexicometria, das postagens foram satisfatoriamente semelhantes aos levantados na análise manual. O modelo PPlus e a escala de graus de PS foram também testados em um segundo ambiente disponibilizado na plataforma Moodle, tendo apresentado resultados equivalentes. A sondagem com professores e tutores de cursos a distância forneceu dados que corroboram a proposta de uma ferramenta a ser inserida em AVEAs de modo a facilitar o acompanhamento de estados afetivos, grau de envolvimento e interação entre os participantes no e com o ambiente. / This thesis presents Presence Plus (PPLus), a model for identifying indicators of social presence in text-based interactions made by students in educational forums and chats. The degree of social presence (SP) can be an indicator of how individuals interact among themselves and with the learning environment, and is considered by the literature to be relevant for the development of relationships and the strengthening of the sense of belonging in the group. This study is based on Pragmatics, an area of Linguistics that emphasizes the importance of the context in communicative events and the dialogic dynamics among speakers. Considering that mapping students’ interactions, as well as detecting and evaluating their degree of SP, may be a complex and time-consuming task in distance learning tutoring, a software was developed to do the automatic processing of posts, aiming at making it a possible functionality in virtual learning environments (VLEs). Despite the few conflicting results, mostly related to textual syntactic relations, data from processing tests using lexicometrics were satisfactorily similar to those obtained by manual analysis. The PPlus model and the SP scale were also tested in a different course in the Moodle platform. Results from this experiment presented equally positive data. Feedback from the questionnaire answered by teachers and tutors working in distance learning courses support the proposal of a tool that may facilitate their assessment of affective states, involvement and text-based interaction dents within the environment.

A Educação a Distância tem crescido de forma muito expressiva nos últimos anos. Com esse crescimento, a preocupação com a qualidade em cursos ofertados nessa modalidade tem aumentado. Para nortear gestores sobre o que é qualidade nessa modalidade de ensino, referenciais de qualidade foram criados pelo Ministério da Educação, objetivando orientá-los na concepção e na condução dos seus cursos. Um dos fatores abordado nesse referencial de qualidade se trata de que o estudante deve ser o centro do processo educacional, no qual os cursos devem prever vias efetivas de comunicação para que o estudante não se sinta isolado e consequentemente venha a abandoná-lo, diminuindo os índices de retenção dos estudantes e aumentando os índices de evasão. Portanto, o tema presença social, que é a forma com que o estudante se sente pertencente ao seu curso, contribui para o aumento da qualidade do mesmo. Diante disso, foi realizado um levantamento bibliográfico sobre o tema e seus benefícios para essa modalidade de ensino. Também foram apresentadas estratégias que podem ser utilizadas para fomentar a presença social, no que tange o ambiente virtual de aprendizagem quanto aos professores/tutores e estudantes. Porém, para que a presença social seja detectada é necessário que se tenha um instrumento válido e confiável. Diante disso, foram pesquisados instrumentos existentes que pudessem contribuir para atingir o objetivo desta pesquisa. Na pesquisa foi encontrado um instrumento validado num contexto educacional que se mostrou importante para esta pesquisa. Esse instrumento, para ser validado no contexto em que a pesquisa foi realizada, passou por tradução, consulta a especialistas e pré-teste, antes da sua aplicação. Posteriormente, o instrumento foi aplicado para estudantes de um curso de graduação de uma Instituição de Ensino Superior particular e para seus professores/tutores. Para verificar a confiabilidade do construto, foi utilizado o alfa de Cronbach e para a validade do construto foi utilizada a análise fatorial. As análises dos dados mostraram que o instrumento, resultado desta pesquisa, é confiável e válido, podendo contribuir efetivamente para mensurar presença social em cursos de graduação a distância e contribuir com estratégias para melhorar ações nos cursos. / Distance education has increased quite significantly in recent years and this growth has in turn heightened concern about the quality of courses offered in this mode. To guide course managers on what is quality in this type of education, quality guidelines were created by Brazils Ministry of Education in order to guide them in the design and conduction of their courses. One of the factors discussed in this quality referential regards that the student should be the center of the educational process. This means that the courses should provide effective means of communication so that the student does not feel isolated and as a result abandon the course, thereby decreasing students retention rates and increasing dropout rates. Therefore, the theme social presence, which is the way for a student to feel he belongs to his course, contributes to increasing the quality of the course. Therefore, a literature review was conducted on the subject and its benefits to this type of education. Additionally, strategies that can be used to foster social presence were presented both in terms of the virtual learning environment as well as teachers/tutors and students. However, for social presence to be detected it is necessary to have a valid and reliable instrument. Therefore, the existing instruments that could help achieve the goal of this research were investigated and an instrument validated in an educational context was found, which was vital for this research. For this instrument to be validated in the context in which the research was conducted, prior to its application, it was translated and experts were consulted and pre-test were performed. The instrument was then administered to undergraduate students in a private Higher Education Institution as well as to their teachers/tutors. Cronbach\'s alpha was used to verify the construct reliability and the factor analysis was used to verify the construct validity. The data analysis showed that the instrument, the result of this research, is reliable and valid and can effectively contribute to measure social presence in undergraduate distance courses as well as contribute with strategies to improve course activities.

Este trabalho de tese apresenta o Modelo Presença Plus (PPlus) para identificação de pistas textuais denotadoras de presença social em interações discursivas feitas por alunos em fóruns e chats educacionais. O grau de presença social (PS) é um indicativo de como os sujeitos interagem entre si e com o ambiente de aprendizagem; sendo considerado, na literatura, significativo para o desenvolvimento de relacionamentos e fortalecimento de sentimento de pertencimento no grupo. O trabalho se baseia na vertente Pragmática da Linguística, campo que enfatiza a importância de se considerar o contexto de produção dos eventos comunicativos e a dinâmica dialógica entre os interlocutores. Considerando que o mapeamento das interações dos discentes para detectar e avaliar seu grau de presença pode se constituir uma tarefa complexa e morosa para tutores de cursos a distância, desenvolveu-se um software para realizar o processamento automático das mensagens eletrônicas visando torná-lo uma funcionalidade a ser adicionada a ambientes virtuais de ensino e aprendizagem (AVEAs). Apesar de alguns impasses referentes, particularmente, aos aspectos sintáticos dos textos, os resultados obtidos no processamento, por lexicometria, das postagens foram satisfatoriamente semelhantes aos levantados na análise manual. O modelo PPlus e a escala de graus de PS foram também testados em um segundo ambiente disponibilizado na plataforma Moodle, tendo apresentado resultados equivalentes. A sondagem com professores e tutores de cursos a distância forneceu dados que corroboram a proposta de uma ferramenta a ser inserida em AVEAs de modo a facilitar o acompanhamento de estados afetivos, grau de envolvimento e interação entre os participantes no e com o ambiente. / This thesis presents Presence Plus (PPLus), a model for identifying indicators of social presence in text-based interactions made by students in educational forums and chats. The degree of social presence (SP) can be an indicator of how individuals interact among themselves and with the learning environment, and is considered by the literature to be relevant for the development of relationships and the strengthening of the sense of belonging in the group. This study is based on Pragmatics, an area of Linguistics that emphasizes the importance of the context in communicative events and the dialogic dynamics among speakers. Considering that mapping students’ interactions, as well as detecting and evaluating their degree of SP, may be a complex and time-consuming task in distance learning tutoring, a software was developed to do the automatic processing of posts, aiming at making it a possible functionality in virtual learning environments (VLEs). Despite the few conflicting results, mostly related to textual syntactic relations, data from processing tests using lexicometrics were satisfactorily similar to those obtained by manual analysis. The PPlus model and the SP scale were also tested in a different course in the Moodle platform. Results from this experiment presented equally positive data. Feedback from the questionnaire answered by teachers and tutors working in distance learning courses support the proposal of a tool that may facilitate their assessment of affective states, involvement and text-based interaction dents within the environment.

E-learning offers many ways to partake in distance studies by overcoming obstacles such as physical localization or breaking existing social bonds. Having a higher education also gives greater opportunities both when it comes to employment as well as self-fulfillment. At the same time, e-learning comes with its own challenges both from the viewpoint of instructor as well as learner. Challenges that may be the reason for higher dropout rates compared to campus studies. Even though technology itself is crucial, actually making use of it in an efficient and suitable way as well as planning courses with e-learning in mind is even more important. In this thesis, motivation, communication and collaboration are used as the foundation for researching how e-learning can be facilitated. Theory presented states that there are several dimensions that needs to be kept in mind if learning is to be facilitated. Any course must be set up in such a way that all learners, no matter physical localization, are involved. This included both during lectures as well as any kind of examination. The learner also needs to have proper technology available, technology that both supports communication as well as collaboration. Through these tools, communities can be built in which learning can be enhanced. To investigate this, a qualitative method, consisting of interviews with distance students, were conducted. The results shows that technology were used extensively, both for planning as well as exchanging information. Having proper and clear instructions, both written and orally, was needed. Being able to participate was seen as one of the more crucial factors, both for learning and forming communities. It was also showed that the informants used the tools available not only to increase learning between each other, but also to form bonds over a longer period of time. Non-task communication enhanced the feeling of being part of something greater. Something which in turn increased collaboration and the perceived learning. Social media was the most used tool for planning and executing tasks within a course. It is concluded that to facilitate learning in an e-learning environment, there needs to be more than just proper instructions. There needs to be relevant information given in such a way to uphold the learners’ attention. There also needs to be a focus on collaboration over time, involving both instructors and learners. Beyond this, there needs to be tools available for the learners to form bonds, communities, between each other to facilitate learning and motivation. Through this, a true community of inquiry might be possible.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the preferences of online students for technology-based learning environments (TBLEs) as influenced by the level of social presence in the online courses the participating students have taken. This investigation was centered around utilizing TBLEs and methods for establishing social presence in online classes (MESPOC) survey instruments to obtain the preferences of current online students at public university in the state of Texas. This study assumed a qualitative research structure comprising analysis of the data obtained on the TBLE and MESPOC instruments followed by semi-structured interviews with some of the survey participants. The results of the studies indicated that an individual’s preferred online learning environments impacted satisfaction in an online course. Moreover, the study, also explored the students’ preferences when it comes to the organization and facilitation of online courses.

Educational technologies are increasingly integrated into higher education, in the form of distance online education for instance. This is an example of how globalization reconfigures education (Carnoy & Rothen, 2000, as cited in Peters, Besley, & Besley, 2006, pp.50).  However, the development of online distance education is not without challenges, including the lack of sense of belonging and the feeling of isolation among students, leading to dropouts. Even if there is no deterministic effect of online environments on social interactions, being online undoubtedly reshapes social behaviors. These issues are addressed in this study by examining social presence, defined as the sense of being there with others in a mediated environment (Heeter, 1992), taking an online distance course on Global Education Development in Finland as a study-case. The research aims to analyze how social presence is performed and negotiated through educational technologies. It is grounded in social constructivism to circumvent determinism that prevails in many research works on social presence and educational technologies. Social constructivism brings out human agency while recognizing the effect of the “socio-historical norms, values, beliefs, and perspectives that individuals bring into online learning environments” on the way educational technologies are used and social presence performed (Öztok, 2016, as cited in Öztok, 2013, pp.1). This research pursues a qualitative comparative methodology complemented with basic descriptive statistics. It draws from multiple data sources as it analyzes observations of interactions, survey questionnaires, course material, learning diaries, and six semi-structured interviews with students. The findings explore three dimensions of social presence: subjective, physical, and collective presence. They reveal that broader academic norms, more than educational technologies themselves, shape the representations of subjective presence. The results also verify that text-based online discussions provide more space for students to participate in discussions than webinars using online video-based technologies, but are also paradoxically negatively perceived by students. The analysis of collective presence demonstrates that it emerges from a shared group identity among students and instructors, rather than from sharing sensory inputs, developing interpersonal relations, or sharing personal background information at a group level.

Background. Eye-tracking has increasingly been used in games to enhance the experience and make them more accessible to a wider audience. The technology has also previously been found to give a higher sense of social presence and immersion. Objectives. The objective of this study is to review indirect social gaze and its impact on social presence, immersion and problem-solving in a competitive, multiplayer game. In this case, the game was a version of Memory. Methods. An experiment was conducted that had 28 participants. To collect the necessary data a multiplayer game was created using the game engine Unity and the Tobii Unity SDK. The game was used to collect in-game data and separate questionnaires were created and used to collect qualitative answers regarding the participants' game experience and preferred input. During the experiments, participants got to play three different versions of the game using gaze control with blinks, gaze control without blinks and mouse control in varying order to give feedback on all versions of the game. Results. The collected results from the experiment show that indirect social gaze seems to be beneficial in terms of social presence and immersion but worse compared to mouse control in terms of problem-solving. These results found statistical significance in a subset of the data. Conclusions. While limited to a specific group of people specifically young adults with an academic background, the study has found that by simply using a small subset of the functionality that an eye tracker can bring, positive effects on social presence and immersion can be found. Gaze control in terms of problem-solving, however, seems to fit better in some game genres than others and the first person controls in this experiment performed the best using mouse control when reviewing problem-solving.

This thesis presents a novel interaction model using mixed reality simulating a robot human interaction; a clay embodiment is overlaid with animated facial features using mobile augmented reality. One of the challenges when building a social agent, whether it is for education or solely social interaction, is to achieve social presence. One way to increase the feeling of presence is to have the agent physically embodied by using a robot. Earlier research has found that users listen more to robots that are present, than robots that are presented through a screen. But there are problems that come with robots that are not yet solved. Robot are expensive, they break, they are hard to update and they are very limited to the realm and problems they are built for: even standing up can be a challenge. This thesis tests if the theory of embodiment as a tool to heighten presence can be achieved, even if the robot and the interaction is only present in a screen. The clay embodiment is built by hand and later 3D scanned. The clay embodiment is tracked using Vuforia’s object recognition of the scan and is given an animatable face in a mixed reality setting through unity. The interaction of comparison and the basis of evaluation consist of a fully virtual robot head placed in 3D space using ground plane tracking. These interactions are compared separately and test subjects are only exposed to one type of interaction. Through the study the participants interacting with the clay embodiment rated the exeprience higher in respect to physical presences and scored better ability to recall details than the one with the fully augmented robot human interaction. The results were significant and indicate, with the reservation of false positives given the small participation sample, that mobile augmented reality agent interactions are improved, in respect to attention allocation and physical presence, by the use of mixed reality embodiments. Overall the interaction was very well perceived. Both conditions were highly enjoyed and critique mostly focused on the lack of complexity in the dialogue - the participants wanted more. Initial positive feedback states that this can and should be tested further. / Den här uppsatsen presenterar en ny interaktionsmodell i mixed reality (förstärkt verklighet). Modellen simulerar en interaktion mellan en robot och en användare: en robotfigur gestaltad i lera är förstärkt med animerade ansiktsdrag som visas i en mixed reality - miljö genom en mobiltelefon. Interaktionsmodellen med den fysiska robotfiguren kombinerad med animerade ansiktsdrag testas mot en likadan interaktion med en helt virtuellt robot utan fysisk gestaltning. En av utmaningarna vid skapandet av sociala agenter, oavsett om de är byggda för undervisningsmiljöer eller enbart rent sociala interaktioner, är att åstadkomma en upplevelse av social närvaro. Ett sätt att öka känslan av närvaro är att använda sig av en fysisk gestaltning i form av en robot. Tidigare forskning har funnit att användare lyssnar mer på robotar som finns fysiskt närvarande än robotar som presenteras via en skärm. Problemet med robotar är att de är dyra, de går sönder, de är svåra att uppdatera och de kan vara väldigt fysiskt begränsade: till och med att gå kan vara en utmaning. Den här uppsatsen testar ifall fysisk gestaltning ökar känslan av social närvaro, trots att all interaktion sker via en skärm. Ler-gestaltningen är skulpterad för hand, 3D-skannad och sedan spårad med hjälp av Vuforias objektigenkän- ning. Ler-gestaltningen får animerbara ansiktsdrag i mobilen. Denna interaktion jämförs mot en interaktion utan fysisk gestaltning: ett enbart virtuellt robothuvud med samma ansiktsdrag som är virtuellt positionerad i det fysiska rummet med hjälp av yt- och plan-igenkänning. Resultaten visade att interaktion mellan en människa och en virtuell agent har en ökad upplevelse av fysisk närvaro och att en virtuell agent tilldelas mer uppmärksamhet av den mänskliga parten ifall agenten har en fysisk gestaltning. Resultaten är statistiskt signifikanta med viss reservation för deltagarantalet i studien. Överlag upplevdes interaktionerna väldigt positivt. Deltagare från bägge interaktionerna gillade upplevelse. Deltagarnas tydligaste kritiska synpunkter gällde brist på komplexitet i konversationen - deltagarna ville ha en rikare interaktion. Den positiva responsen visar att interaktionssättet kan och bör studeras yttligare.