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Clickers are hand-held devices that wirelessly transmit student input to a computer: students answer multiple-choice questions using their clickers and the answer distribution is displayed on a screen. Previous studies suggest that the pedagogical use of these devices may contribute to learning and that they are positively perceived by students in general and second language education. Despite these optimistic outcomes, clicker studies remain scarce in L2 education and in K-12 contexts. This study investigated 61 adolescent students' and their teacher's perceptions of using clickers to learn vocabulary in an English as a Second Language context. Two intact groups of students were assigned to a treatment group (Clicker Group, n = 31; Non-Clicker Group, n = 30). Their perceptions were examined via surveys and interviews, guided by four measures: Learning, Self-assessment, Engagement, and Interactivity. The results suggest that students in the Clicker Group had significantly more positive perceptions than those in the Non-Clicker Group for most measures. This corroborates previous findings regarding students' perceptions of clickers. Interviews were conducted to assess the teacher's perceptions. In contrast to the students, the teacher's perception was predominantly neutral to negative, contradicting existing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractWith the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) based systems, a new era has begun. Decisions that were once made by humans are now increasingly being made by these advanced systems, with the inevitable consequence of our growing reliance on AI in many aspects of our lives. At the same time, the opaque nature of AI-based systems and the possibility of unintentional or hidden discriminatory practices and biases raises profound questions not only about the mechanics of AI, but also about how users perceive the fairness of these systems. We hypothesize that providing various explanations for AI decision-making processes and output may enhance users’ fairness perceptions and make them trust the system and adopt its decisions. Hence, we devised an online between-subject experiment that explores users’ fairness and comprehension perceptions of AI systems with respect to the explanations provided by the system, employing a case study of a managerial decision in the human resources (HR) domain. We manipulated (i) the decision-maker (AI or human); (ii) the input (candidate characteristics); (iii) the output (recommendation valence), and (iv) the explanation style. We examined the effect of the various manipulations (and individuals’ demographic and personality characteristics) using multivariate ordinal regression. We also performed a multi-level analysis of experiment components to examine the effects of the decision-maker type, explanation style, and their combination. The results suggest three main conclusions. The first conclusion is that there is a gap in users’ fairness and comprehension perception of AI-based decision making systems compared to human decision making. The second conclusion is that knowing that an AI-based system provided the decisions negatively affects users’ fairness and comprehension perceptions, compared to knowing that humans made the decision. Finally, the third conclusion is that providing case-based, certification-based, or sensitivity-based explanations can narrow this gap and may even eliminate it. Additionally, we found that users’ fairness and comprehension perceptions are influenced by a variety of factors such as the input, output, and explanation provided by the system, as well as by individuals’ age, education, computer skills, and personality. Our findings may help to understand when and how to use explanations to improve users’ perceptions regarding AI-based decision-making. CCS CONCEPTS • Human computer interaction (HCI) → HCI design and evaluation methods → User studies • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI) → Empirical studies in HCI • Applied computing → Law, social and behavioral sciences → Sociology [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractExploring and validating factors that may influence the trustworthiness of social robots is of great significance to improving the effect of human-robot interaction. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of several design factors on people’s perceptions of the trustworthiness of social robots. The research variables were social cues (ie, watching-eyes configuration, control configuration, and neutral configuration), head shape (ie, round head and rectangular head), body proportion (ie, low body proportion and high body proportion), and participant’s gender (ie, male and female). Twelve static synthetic social robots were created and presented to the participants as digital pictures. A total of 175 participants took part in the experiment through the online survey via the convenience sampling method. The generated results were as follows: (1) The robots with round heads appear to be more trustworthy than those with rectangular heads. (2) Robots with high body proportion are considered to be more trustworthy than robots with low body proportion. (3) Minimal social cues and body proportion of robots also have a significant interaction effect on improving the trustworthiness of robots. In the watching-eyes configuration, high body proportion is considered more trustworthy than low body proportion. On one hand, the results of this study can provide a good reference for the appearance form of social robots in human-robot interaction to serve human beings, and on the other hand, it also lays a foundation for further exploring the influence of social cues elicited by a series of social robot appearances and social behaviors regarding the trustworthiness of social robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We sought to identify the perceptions of users and medical providers regarding the recreational use of tramadol in the Gaza Strip, a society that is affected by severe political and military violence. We conducted qualitative interviews with psychiatrists and tramadol users to identify their perceptions of the individual, community, and socio-political determinants of tramadol use, its effect on quality of life, and the challenges experienced in the recovery process. Thematic analysis was applied to the narratives of 26 interviewees; 13 psychiatrists (12 males, one female; age range = 32–58, mean age = 44.5, SD,=6.9; years of experience = 6–29, mean = 16.6, SD = 6.3), and 13 tramadol users (13 males; age range = 24–52, mean = 35.1, SD = 8.98). Three main themes emerged, namely, conditions contributing to the misuse of tramadol, challenges in recovering from tramadol misuse, and consequences of misuse on individuals and social networks. Participants stated that critical environmental and living conditions, such as unemployment, poverty, stress, health, and mental health-related determinants have led to the use of the opioid. Also, disrupted and weak social services that are unprepared to manage widespread substance use cannot safeguard and assist tramadol users. We conceptualize the data in terms of a socio-ecological model drawing on individual, social and cultural determinants of tramadol use, and discuss the clinical and research implications of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a report on the quantitative data collected from patients, family members, and visitors using the outpatient areas of three hospitals in Portugal. It details the users' views regarding the existing signage and presents suggestions to improve the design and implementation of the signage systems. A questionnaire was used with 1,287 respondents. The results showed that almost all users had a positive opinion regarding the current signage. However, some of the users' answers and observed behaviors indicated that the majority tended to ignore the signs and preferred to ask staff for help. Additionally, when asked for suggestions, many of the respondents were able to point out existing problems that affected their wayfinding. Although the signage was generally evaluated as good, many of the users perceived a variety of problems and, as already mentioned, asked the staff for directions, which results in lost time and hidden costs for the institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: The objective of this research was to explore the perceptions of the users regarding Internet financial reporting practices in Slovenia. With this research, we wanted to determine what the perceptions of the users are regarding the reliability, credibility, usefulness and sufficiency of online accounting information and how their expectations regarding the content of accounting information differ from the actual situation.

Users' acceptability is considered one of the key drivers for the successful implementation of transport policy measures. This is especially crucial in the case of toll roads since they are financed through drivers' contributions. Previous literature in this field has mainly focused on measuring users' attitudes towards urban congestion pricing strategies. However limited research has been developed concerning interurban toll roads. Previous research shows that socioeconomic variables are not conclusive to explain users' perceptions towards tolls. By contrast, other drivers such as regional differences seem to play a more important role, especially when charging conditions within the same nation greatly vary across regions. This paper analyzes regional differences in users' attitudes within an asymmetrical distribution of the toll road network across regions. Based on a nationwide survey conducted to road users in interurban toll roads in Spain, we develop both a binomial logit and a censored regression (tobit) model to explore drivers' perceptions and willingness to pay. The research concludes that users from regions with a more extensive tolled network generally show a more negative attitude towards charges, but not necessarily a lower willingness to pay. The paper also points out that an asymmetrical distribution of toll roads across regions may result in negative perceptions among those users perceiving to be unfairly treated when compared to citizens in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parks are an integral part of urban environment which provide a range of ecosystem services. While a great deal of efforts has been invested to investigate monetary and biophysical benefits of natural ecosystems, very few studies have explored socio-ecological values of urban parks. Comparative studies of ecosystem services from urban parks between multiple countries are even rarer. To address this research gap, we have compared users' perceptions of ecosystem services of two major urban parks in China (Dufu Cottage, Chengdu) and in Australia (Kings Park, Perth). Using an ecosystem services framework, we explored three key questions: (i) which ecosystem services are perceived to be most important? (ii) what are the trends of ecosystem services provided by the park? and (iii) which demographic and socio-economic factors influence users' perceptions most? We observed that there is no substantial difference in users' perceptions (in terms of importance and trend) of ecosystem services between two countries, except for microclimate service. Respondents in Dufu Cottage perceived microclimate as the most important service while in Kings Park, a number of services (e.g., aesthetic, habitat and recreational) received almost equal importance. Almost two-thirds of the respondents have perceived an increased level ecosystem services over the last five years. Various socio-demographic factors, such as gender, age, income level and frequency of visits influenced users' perceptions most significantly. These results have critical implications in designing more environmentally sensitive as well as user-oriented urban parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing relevance of technology and its impact on our everyday life requires multi- and trans-disciplinary studies in order to investigate the ways in which the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools are affected by users' features and by the external environment. In order to enrich existing contributions on this topic, the paper focuses its attention on the city as example of service systems, in order to investigate dimensions and dynamics that influence the city employees' evaluation and satisfaction in the use of ICT platforms. By adopting the interpretative lens offered by Service Science and Systems Thinking, the domain of city as a service system is analysed and some hypotheses are formulated with reference to the relationships between environment, users, and ICT platform. The hypotheses are investigated through a questionnaire survey on a sample of 1032 municipalities in the Czech Republic and the results are tested using Structural Equation Modelling. The research shows that users' features and external environment affect the evaluation and the satisfaction of city stakeholders about the use of ICT platforms by underlining the need for enlarging the study on informatics tools, in order to also include subjective variables. The findings are discussed from both theoretical and practical points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine litter is a global issue, and one way to face this problem is to increase citizen knowledge and awareness. In our study, we analyzed and quantified the abundance of marine litter on 5 pocket beaches located in North Sardinia. From the 7975 collected items, plastic was the most important litter category. Regarding the MLs' sources, no-sourced and public litter were the most abundant. Waste density is quite high and characterized by great variability, due to two site-specific factors: geomorphological control and human influences. Those key aspects underlying the importance of further understanding marine debris fate and transport and human behaviors because they denote a crucial role to achieve effective marine debris management. In addition, social surveys were performed to assess users' perceptions and knowledge of marine litter. The results of the interviews show that people are aware of the negative impacts that may arise from the presence of waste, and recognized that the presence of litter on the beach is mainly due to human behavior. However, the comparison of beach users' perceptions and the marine litter collected reveals that users only have partial knowledge of the waste composition, requiring further actions involving different targets. • 7975 marine litter debris were collected on five pocket beaches. • Plastic is the most present material in all monitored sites. • Marine litter was associated with human behavior. • Public perception represents a key-action to face marine litter pollution. • Increasing public knowledge may favor citizen actions against marine litter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of internet banking in India has witnessed a tremendous growth in the Indian banking industry. Internet banking has become the latest channel of delivering financial services to different categories of its users. It is also known as online banking, internet banking, virtual banking etc. The success of concept of internet banking in India is highly dependent upon its users as well as the banks which have introduced the internet banking services in their bank. This research paper has been written from the point of view of users of internet banking services. The main objective of this paper is to study the perceptions of users of internet banking services and to study the strategic issues involved in it. For this purpose database of both primary and secondary sources has been used. The data for users' perception towards internet banking is collected using well structured and pretested questionnaire. The questionnaire is prepared on the basis of 5 point Likert scale. For the primary data collection the sample size of respondents is 100 for this study. The analysis was done using statistical techniques like descriptive statistics and t-test. The study concludes that customers perception on usefulness and convenience have strong influence on the internet banking adoption but security, privacy, tangibility and cost are such factors which negatively affect the perceptions of users of internet banking. These perceptions affect the user's decision of adoption of internet banking also. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public acceptability is crucial to achieve the successful implementation of certain policy initiatives. In the transport sector, this is especially relevant for toll roads since they entail a burden to the users. Previous literature in this field has mainly focused on analyzing the influence of different individual characteristics on attitudes towards road charges, without clear results. However, other context-specific drivers such as regional parameters may also play an important role to explain users' attitudes, especially when the implementation of tolls within the same nation varies throughout regions. The goal of this paper is to analyze regional differences in users' perceptions with regard to tolls as an appropriate way to finance the provision of road infrastructure. Based on a nationwide survey conducted to road users in interurban toll roads in Spain, we develop a multilevel logit model to explore regional differences in drivers' perceptions. The research concludes that differences identified seem to be more influenced by context-specific variables, related to either the characteristics of the toll road or the region, than by the characteristics of the individuals. The paper also underlines the negative effects of an asymmetrical distribution of toll roads across regions on users' perceptions, since those territories especially suffering the burden of tolls show a more negative attitude towards road charging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pereira da Silva, C.; Nogueira Mendes, R..; Moutinho, G.; Mota, V. and Fonseca, C., 2016. Beach carrying capacity and protected areas: management issues in Arrábida Natural Park, Portugal. In: Vila-Concejo, A.; Bruce, E.; Kennedy, D.M., and McCarroll, R.J. (eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Coastal Symposium (Sydney, Australia). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 75, pp. 680-684. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Arrábida Natural Park (Portugal) comprises beaches with high natural and scenic values under huge demand during peak season. Understanding patterns of beach use and the perceptions of users is essential for carrying capacity management. This paper discusses the use intensity and dynamic in two beaches, using data from onsite counting, time-lapse photos and a traffic counter. Users' perceptions regarding general aspects of the beaches and perceived crowding obtained through questionnaires are also presented. The number of users recorded in this study never reached the carrying capacity established and most users feel comfortable with the number of people on the beach. However, parking and traffic were identified as factors of concern: users are not discouraged by the limited parking spaces, often exceeding the formal capacity by parking on the roadside. This type of problem needs to be addressed not only in the context of beach management but also the protected area management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustained increase in the urban population and the trend towards urban sprawl in European cities has led to a change in mobility patterns, and many public transport users now need to combine several modes or transport services at urban transport interchanges before they reach their final destination. Therefore, they have become an everyday experience for users where, in addition, users spend time inside. This paper aims to identify the key factors both from a functional and psychological perspective for defining an efficient transport interchange. Since the users' perceptions of their experience are particularly important for achieving the most appropriate policy measures for interchanges, an ad-hoc travellers' satisfaction survey was designed and carried out in three European transport interchanges. The assessment methodology used here – Principal Component Analysis – is proposed as a useful step-by-step procedure. The results of this research highlight the ambivalent nature of the urban transport interchanges. The key functional aspects identified contribute to make easier the transfer and reduce the waiting time, while the psychological factors make the stay more comfortable for users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing relevance of technology and its impact on our everyday life requires multi- and trans-disciplinary studies in order to investigate the ways in which the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools are affected by users’ features and by the external environment. In order to enrich existing contributions on this topic, the paper focuses its attention on the city as example of service systems, in order to investigate dimensions and dynamics that influence the city employees’ evaluation and satisfaction in the use of ICT platforms. By adopting the interpretative lens offered by Service Science and Systems Thinking, the domain of city as a service system is analysed and some hypotheses are formulated with reference to the relationships between environment, users, and ICT platform. The hypotheses are investigated through a questionnaire survey on a sample of 1032 municipalities in the Czech Republic and the results are tested using Structural Equation Modelling. The research shows that users’ features and external environment affect the evaluation and the satisfaction of city stakeholders about the use of ICT platforms by underlining the need for enlarging the study on informatics tools, in order to also include subjective variables. The findings are discussed from both theoretical and practical points of view.

Due to an increase in population, urban centers are currently seeing an increase in traffic, resulting in negative consequences such as pollution and congestion. Efforts have been made to promote a modal shift towards the use of more sustainable means of transport, such as walking and cycling, but several deterrents influence the citizens' perceptions of safety, security and comfort, discouraging their choice of active modes of transport. This study focuses on the importance of providing meaningful information to vulnerable road users (VRUs) to support their perceptions and objectives while moving within urban spaces through a novel concept of route planning. A broad survey of the needs and concerns of VRUs through interviews, focus groups and questionnaires, applied to the Portuguese population of the Metropolitan Area of Porto, led to the development of a new concept of route planners that show personalized routes according to the individual perceptions of each user. This concept is materialized in a route planner prototype that has been extensively tested by potential users. Subjective evaluation and feedback showed the usefulness of the concept and added value to a familiar product, leading to a satisfying experience for participants. This study shows that there is an opportunity to improve these tools to provide a higher degree of power and customization to users on route planning, which includes addressing mobility restrictions and personal perceptions of safety, security and comfort. The ultimate goal of this new approach is to persuade citizens to switch to more sustainable means of transport.

China is facing a serious urban regeneration issue in which replicable international-style locations are losing their socio-cultural adaptability, especially in anonymous residential neighbourhoods. This study defines the key location qualities from local literature and then refines these qualities through observation investigations and statistical analysis ( n = 180) to establish links between theories and contemporary uses. Based on the results, a correlation analysis of local place qualities was assessed from users' perceptions ( n = 180) to identify the interactional influences between each indicator of local place qualities. Finally, local place qualities were scored to address their level of impact on users' perceptions. The results highlighted health, enjoyment, and social dependence as the most concerning factors in site investigations based on local cognitions. They are strongly associated with key local place qualities (naturality, functionality, cosmological cognitions, and interdependent sociability), directly and indirectly resulting in different levels of impact on users' perceptions at different scales.

Motivated by a desire to discover how buildings operate in practice and inspired by the pioneering PROBE Studies (post-occupancy review of buildings and their engineering) the author has spent the last decade investigating both the design and the users' perceptions of (mainly) sustainable buildings. This has involved visiting some 60 commercial or institutional buildings worldwide, interviewing the designers, and in most cases personally conducting a questionnaire survey of the users covering operational, thermal, lighting, noise, control and satisfaction issues. This paper highlights some of the key findings from these investigations, including the design features of the sustainable buildings, how their performance compared with that of more conventional buildings, whether refurbishments achieved better or worse perception scores than new designs, and the characteristics of the users' comments. The paper concludes by outlining potential approaches to benchmarking user perception scores and advocating for their inclusion in building sustainability rating tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research focuses on user's perceptions of M-commerce. It investigates issues that are related to M-commerce successful implementation, such as integrating the function of business intelligence and information system management to M-commerce, applying businesses process management to M-commerce, and solving the security and privacy issues in which could impede M-commerce. This paper develops a research framework and hypotheses to investigate users' perceptions of those M-commerce implementation issues. The research results show that there are big gaps between users' perceptions of the actually situations and their expectations of those issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors’ aim was to determine whether users perceived sustainable buildings to be performing differently from conventional buildings. To do so, they surveyed and analysed users’ perceptions of 45 factors related to operational, environmental, personal control and satisfaction aspects of two sets of buildings: a worldwide set of 31, selected on the basis of their sustainability credentials, and a set of 109 conventional selected from a larger database of commercial and institutional buildings. The user perception scores for each factor were summarized and compared for the two sets of buildings. It was found that the sustainable buildings performed very much better than the conventional buildings in terms of operational and satisfaction factors. In terms of environmental factors, modest improvements were found in thermal conditions and lighting, but little difference in noise, whereas personal control was largely unchanged. Some common features of the sustainable buildings are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Use of users' perception in measuring quality of care has been shown to be useful in screening problems and in planning for improvement of quality of health care delivery. Traditionally, quality of care has been measured using professional standards, neglecting users' opinions which may leave psychosocial needs unattended. The objective of this descriptive cross-sectional study was to assess users' perceptions of quality of care given at outpatient department (OPD) at Kilosa District Hospital in Central Tanzania. Hospital based exit interviews were conducted to adult patients or caregivers of children attending the hospital. Focus Group Discussions were conducted among community members in selected villages within the hospital catchment area. Information on perceptions on care provider-patient interaction, cost of service, availability of medicines, equipment and health personnel was sought from the participants. Overall OPD was perceived to have several shortcomings including verbal abuse of patients by care providers, lack of responsiveness to patients' needs, delays, inadequate examination, unreliable supply of medicines, lack of confidentiality and favouritism in health care provision. Cost of service was perceived to be reasonable provided medicines were available. In conclusion, provider-patient interactions, timely services, supply of medicines and favouritism were the major factors affecting quality of service at the hospital. Efforts should be made to address the shortcomings so as to improve quality of care and users perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earlier research that focused on selected commercial services suggested that from the user's perspective the concept of service quality consists of five main dimensions. The present study investigated the relative importance of these dimensions as perceived by participants in four selected public recreation programs. To ensure diversity in the type of programs included, a taxonomy was used to guide program selection. It was hypothesized that dimensions of service quality would not be of equal importance to participants in the selected recreation programs, and the hypothesis was supported. Reliability consistently emerged across programs as the most important dimension of service quality, and in three of the four programs empathy received the least support. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the global popularity of bus rapid transit (BRT) in last couple of decades, there is limited empirical evidence in the rapidly urbanizing developing countries regarding corridor-wide users' typical travel characteristics and perceptions of the system attributes. The factors affecting BRT users' (dis)satisfaction are also often disregarded, given less priority than needed, or delayed till issues become more difficult and costlier to manage. Although on a rise, currently only ~10% of BRT systems worldwide are in lower-middle-income and low-income countries, which also supports the need to effectively address BRT passengers' mobility issues in such countries with cramped resources, contributing towards more sustainable urban mass transit systems. As major share of BRTs worldwide are single-corridors (~63%), this study investigates the above stated gaps using case of such BRT in the megacity of Lahore, Pakistan via on-site structured interview surveys using intercept method from BRT users along all stations of the corridor. Typical travel characteristics, correlations and cross-comparisons of sample demographics with mobility attributes, underlying (dis)similar themed factors ensuring internal consistency, and rankings of (dis)satisfactions regarding service attributes were evaluated using combination of statistical methods. Visual comparisons of factors in 2D and 3D rotated space were also explored. Results revealed differences in travel characteristics of BRT users for various demographics; convergence of eight factors from twenty-two service quality attributes; spectrum of highest, average and lowest ranked attributes; and inter-spatial relationship of service quality attributes based on the factors contributing relatively more variation. The overarching findings provide useful insights for transportation practitioners, policy makers and could also contribute towards updating BRT guidelines by incorporating the needs and requirements of BRT users in the developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]