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A significant body of the literature has documented the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) in education, but little is known about the effects of AR-supported instruction in tertiary-level Medical Education (ME). This quasi-experimental study compares a traditional instructional approach with supplementary online lecture materials using digital handout notes with a control group (n = 30) and an educational AR application with an experimental group (n = 30) to investigate any possible added-value and gauge the impact of each approach on students' academic performance and training satisfaction. This study's findings indicate considerable differences in both academic performance and training satisfaction between the two groups. The participants in the experimental group performed significantly better than their counterparts, an outcome which is also reflected in their level of training satisfaction through interacting and viewing 3D multimedia content. This study contributes by providing guidelines on how an AR-supported intervention can be integrated into ME and provides empirical evidence on the benefits that such an approach can have on students' academic performance and knowledge acquisition.

Web enjoyment has been regarded as a component of system experience. However, there has been little targeted research considering the role of web enjoyment alone in student learning using web-based systems. To address this gap, this study aims to examine the influence of web enjoyment on learning performance and perceptions by controlling system experience as a variable in the study. 74 students participated in the study, using a web-based tutorial covering subject matter in the area of "Computation and algorithms". Their learning performance was assessed with a pre-test and a post-test and their learning perceptions were evaluated with a questionnaire. The results indicated that there are positive relationships between the levels of web enjoyment and perceived usefulness and non-linear navigation for users with similar, significant levels of system experience. The implications of these findings in relation to web-based learning are explored and ways in which the needs of students who report different levels of web enjoyment might be met are discussed.

Prior knowledge is often argued to be an important determinant in hypermedia learning, and may be thought of as including two important elements: domain expertise and system expertise. However, there has been a lack of research considering these issues together. In an attempt to address this shortcoming, this paper presents a study that examines how domain expertise and system expertise influence students' learning performance in, and perceptions of, a hypermedia system. The results indicate that participants with lower domain knowledge show a greater improvement in their learning performance than those with higher domain knowledge. Furthermore, those who enjoy using the Web more are likely to have positive perceptions of non-linear interaction. Discussions on how to accommodate the different needs of students with varying levels of prior knowledge are provided based on the results.

Discusses information visualization and cocitation analysis and demonstrates the use of an integrative approach to visualizing and tracking the development of competing scientific paradigms. Assumes that a cluster of highly cited and cocited scientific publications in a cocitation network represents the core of a predominant scientific paradigm. (Author/LRW)

Presents a brief historical overview of research in individual differences in the context of virtual environments. Highlights the notion of structure in the perception of individual users of an information system and the role of individuals' abilities to recognize and use such structures to perform various information-intensive tasks. (Author/LRW)

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2004.06.004 Byline: Sherry Y. Chen, Jing-Ping Fan, Robert D. Macredie Abstract: With the advancement of Web technology, hypermedia learning systems are becoming more widespread in educational settings. Hypermedia learning systems present course content with non-sequential formats, so students are required to develop learning paths by themselves. Yet, empirical evidence indicates that not all students can benefit from hypermedia learning. Research into individual differences suggests that prior knowledge has significant effects on student learning in hypermedia systems, with experts and novices showing different preferences to the use of hypermedia learning systems and requiring different levels of navigation support. It is therefore essential to develop a mechanism to help designers understand the needs of experts and novices. To address this issue, this paper presents a framework to illustrate the needs of students with different levels of prior knowledge by analyzing the findings of previous research. The overall aim of this framework is to integrate students' prior knowledge into the design of hypermedia learning systems. Finally, implications for the design of hypermedia learning systems are discussed. Author Affiliation: Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK

There is strong research evidence showing that people naturally align to each other’s vocabulary, sentence structure, and acoustic features in dialog, yet little is known about how the alignment mechanism operates in the interaction between users and computer systems let alone how it may be exploited to improve the efficiency of the interaction. This article provides an account of lexical alignment in human–computer dialogs, based on empirical data collected in a simulated human–computer interaction scenario. The results indicate that alignment is present, resulting in the gradual reduction and stabilization of the vocabulary-in-use, and that it is also reciprocal. Further, the results suggest that when system and user errors occur, the development of alignment is temporarily disrupted and users tend to introduce novel words to the dialog. The results also indicate that alignment in human–computer interaction may have a strong strategic component and is used as a resource to compensate for less optimal (visually impoverished) interaction conditions. Moreover, lower alignment is associated with less successful interaction, as measured by user perceptions. The article distills the results of the study into design recommendations for human–computer dialog systems and uses them to outline a model of dialog management that supports and exploits alignment through mechanisms for in-use adaptation of the system’s grammar and lexicon.Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/hhci. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

More than 2 billion people are using the Internet at present, assisted by the mediating activities of software agents that deal with the diversity and complexity of information. There are, however, ethical issues due to the monitoring-and-surveillance, data-mining, and autonomous nature of software agents. Considering the context, this study aims to comprehend stakeholders’ perspectives on the social network service environment to identify the main considerations for the design of software agents in social network services in the near future. Twenty-one stakeholders, belonging to 3 key stakeholder groups, were recruited using a purposive sampling strategy for unstandardized semistructured e-mail interviews. The interview data were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis method. It was possible to identify 3 main considerations for the design of software agents in social network services, which were classified into the following categories: comprehensive understanding of users’ perception of privacy, user type recognition algorithms for software agent development, and existing software agents enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate concerning how many participants represents a sufficient number for interaction testing is wellestablished and long-running, with prominent contributions arguing that five users provide a good benchmark when seeking to discover interaction problems. We argue that adoption of five users in this context is often done with little understanding of the basis for, or implications of, the decision. We present an analysis of relevant research to clarify the meaning of the five-user assumption and to examine the way in which the original research that suggested it has been applied. This includes its blind adoption and application in some studies, and complaints about its inadequacies in others. We argue that the five-user assumption is often misunderstood, not only in the field of Human-Computer Interaction, but also in fields such as medical device design, or in business and information applications. The analysis that we present allows us to define a systematic approach for monitoring the sample discovery likelihood, in formative and summative evaluations, and for gathering information in order to make critical decisions during the interaction testing, while respecting the aim of the evaluation and allotted budget. This approach - which we call the Grounded Procedure - is introduced and its value argued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]