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Formulation of guidelines for a more ethical user experience design
Get PDFUser experience design (UXD) often appears unethical, and creators of user ex-perience do not have guidelines that could assist with moral decisions. Even though there are GDPR regulations (General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Official Legal Text, n.d.) for mobile applications and websites, and platforms specific regu-lations (App Store and Google Play – only for mobile applications), that do not allow applications with insulting nature (App Store Review Guidelines - Apple Developer, n.d.), or are trying to protect privacy, the field is mainly unregulated. This short-coming of thinking about ethics could open doors to unethical practices in UXD, such as creating malicious user interfaces that trick users into clicking certain but-tons, performing ‘behind the scenes’ A/B research inside the mobile applications or websites without users’ knowledge, manipulating users through user-experience, abusing privacy of users, and others. In this thesis, I discuss how disposition to-wards virtuous behavior could lead to a more ethical UXD and create a foundation for guidelines. In the discussion about ethics, I use one of the three contemporary approaches in normative ethics, called virtue ethics, which puts forth the character of a person who is making a moral decision, i.e., an agent (Hursthouse, 2014; Kawall, 2014; Van Zyl, 2018). In the process of UXD, there are more agents included, such as artifact originator (client), user experience designer, user interface designer, de-veloper, copywriter, and user. In my work, I present and stress the importance of all the agents included, and not only artifact originator or user experience designer.
To reach the goal of my thesis, I defined the basic steps that could be common to the creation of different UXD artifacts, with a focus on mobile applications, web-sites, and software, and defined the agents involved in this process. Further, I de-fined the responsibilities of each of the agents (e.g., designing the user interface for a user interface designer). Additionally, I presented how UXD could be beneficial or harmful, and I used this knowledge to discuss how disposition to virtuous behavior could lead to more ethical, and avoid unethical, UXD.
The result of the thesis are guidelines, presenting concrete examples of how each of the agents, being disposed to virtuous behavior, could contribute to a more eth-ical UXD. The final thoughts will later be published on a collaborative website that would invite other experts from the field to contribute
Assessing childrenʼs environmental worldviews and concerns
Get PDFThe goal of the present research was to assess the environmental world-views and concerns of students from the fourth to the seventh grade in Slovenia. The New Ecological Paradigm Scale for Children was translated and validated for use with Slovenian primary school students (N = 310). The students were also asked about their environmental concerns (us-ing statements from the Environmental Motives Scale) and demographic questions. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for the New Eco-logical Paradigm scale using AMOS software, confirming a three-dimen-sional model with ten items. The students showed the highest agreement with the items in the factor Rights of Nature, and the lowest agreement with Human Exemptionalism. The environmental attitudes of the stu-dents decreased from the fourth to the seventh grade, while altruistic en-vironmental concerns significantly increased with higher grades. Gender differences were not statistically significant for environmental worldviews and concerns. The reported results show that biospheric environmental concern positively correlates with the factors Rights of Nature and belief in Eco-Crisis, and negatively correlates with Human Exemptionalism. The New Ecological Paradigm tool will enable the evaluation of education programmes for children in Slovenia
Comparison of traditional, kinesthetic and distant learning using psychophysiology
Get PDFPsychophysiology studies the interactions between physiological and psychological events. It is an old idea but a new science. Including psychophysiology into the field of education can better our understanding of the learning process, enable explanations of student’s behaviour with physiological measurements and therefore give us an additional insight and interpretation of the researched phenomena. Here we used psychophysiology for comparing the three different kinds of learning. Firstly, we defined psychophysiology and the chosen physiological measures (heat flux, skin temperature, energy expenditure, metabolic equivalent of task, skin conductance, skin response). Next we described the emotional process and cognitive process of learning. We continued with definitions of traditional learning approach, kinaesthetic learning approach and distance learning approach. Afterwards we explained the concept of the cognitive load and how it can be associated with the difficulty of learning content and described the synchronisation phenomena. Based on this we designed a research study where we compared physiological measures according to the learning approach, difficulty of learning content, physiology of special needs children with the rest of the students,observed the changes in skin conductance signals and analysed their synchronisation.Besides conducting the psychophysiological data of students our data was also gathered with knowledge tests, questioners, with an interview and with video recordings. We analysed all of the data and connected it with psychophysiological measures. Our findings showed statistically important differences in several parts of our research, therefore proved the need for psychophysiology’s use in education research
Using the ESP32 microcontroller for wireless communications
Get PDFThe diploma thesis first introduces the company Espressif Systems and its product development over time. We present the technical specifications of ESP32 microcontrollers and their use in more detail. We describe different controllers based on the ESP32 microcontroller. Controllers of the ESP32 family are compared with controllers of the Arduino family, which are used more often in education, and the most important comparison parameters are explained. We also present the specification of the less known LoRa communication and the corresponding LoRaWAN protocol. Finally, we review and evaluate selected examples of the use of ESP32 controllers in education and list some possible options for use in lower secondary schools
Use of own musical instruments by girls of the last three years of an adapted education programme with a lower educational standard
Get PDFChildren with special education needs are admitted to specific educational programmes, depending on the type and the severity of their deficits, disorders, and obstacles they are facing. The children who do not reach the primary school standards are admitted to a special education programme. A group of children with special education needs may benefit from music in the form of music therapy, musical games, or a combination of the two. Body percussion activities are used to create sound effects for didactic and therapeutic purposes, as well as facilitating social interactions. The research looks at the effect of using body percussion in musical activities and mindfulness exercises on self-awareness and social and emotional well-being of girls enrolled in a special education programme. The qualitative research was carried out as a case study. The study participants are third cycle girls (N = 4), aged 12–15 from school near the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana. It was found that participating in activities using body percussion and exercises in mindfulness lead to changes in the participants’ social performance but the research showed no changes in their emotional performance. Changes in social well-being were seen as the participants being relaxed while participating in the activities, taking initiative, and acting independently. The findings suggest it is beneficial to implement activities with body percussion to train motivation and memory
Graphomotor and orthographic adequacy of writing in students with ADHD
Get PDFWriting is a fundamental skill with which we can express our thoughts, emotions, and demonstrate our knowledge of the world. This skill is not only important in one’s educational stage, but also later in life. If we want to preserve writing as one of the communication types, we have to make sure it is legible and correctly shaped. Manuscript legibility and appropriate letter, word, and sign formation are enabled by the development of graphomotor skills. Research suggests that children suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience difficulties in the graphomotor and writing skills area. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder and it can present itself in a variety of ways. Students with ADHD experience difficulties with attention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. The concurrence of ADHD and writing disabilities has not been researched thoroughly, neither in Slovene nor in foreign literature. There is also a lack of strategies that would help students with ADHD cope with writing difficulties. Strategies for helping with the concurrence of these difficulties have not been developed. Writing difficulties have a negative impact on learning, student development, academic success, as well as on student’s academic self-esteem. Considering all the negative factors enumerated previously, we have decided to research the topic further in master’s thesis. We carried out a study, asking special education teachers from Goriška statistical region, who offer extra support for primary school pupils with ADHD, what kind of difficulties they have been noticing in the area of writing. We examined and analysed spelling and grammatical errors, as well as graphomotor difficulties. Our study group consisted of four pupils with ADHD and twelve pupils without ADHD, all of them attending five grade of primary school. The whole study group, consisting of sixteen pupils, was asked to perform three different types of writing, namely: completing a dictation, copying a text, and writing a text of their own. They were observed while completing these tasks and their texts were later analysed for errors. The results showed that spelling errors and grammatical errors occur in both groups. Pupils with ADHD tend to make more spelling errors and grammatical errors when completing a dictation, than with the other two examined text types. Pupils without ADHD make most of the mistakes when completing a dictation and writing a text of their own. The most frequent dictation mistake, shared by both groups, is letter omission and letter substitution error, occurring due to lack of knowledge. Although pupils with ADHD seem to have fewer difficulties with dictation than their peers without ADHD, they do have more difficulties with misshaping or omitting letters, and substituting words. The results of our study have shown that pupils with ADHD tend to have more graphomotor difficulties than their peers without ADHD. These difficulties can be observed through poor body posture, poor head posture, as well through dysfunctional pencil grip and inconsistent writing speed. Furthermore, pupils with ADHD tend to put more pressure on the paper while writing. After observing ADHD pupils while writing, it can be established that graphomotor difficulties depend both on an individual pupil and type of writing task. Generalizations about ADHD-specific writing difficulties cannot be made. The analysis of texts produced for the purpose of our study has shown that ADHD pupils tend to have more difficulties in the area of graphomotor skills than their peers without ADHD. The results of our study indicate that there are differences between different types of writing. A specific type of error can be produced by an individual pupil with one text type, but not with the other text types. Special education teachers s participated in answering questions about their observations of ADHD pupils and their writing. Their answers indicated that they see spelling errors, grammatical errors, and graphomotor difficulties with ADHD pupils, regardless of the text type (dictation, copying texts, autonomous writing). Considering our study findings, interview analysis, analysis of texts produced by ADHD pupils, and literature available it can be concluded that observations from special education teachers are in line with the information found in research and scientific literature
Preparing a person with Down syndrome for an ophthalmological examination
Get PDFDue to the specific characteristics in communication, understanding, attention and cooperation, some problems may occur during the ophthalmological examination of persons with Down syndrome. With proper preparation and adjustments, we could mitigate the problems and carry out ophthalmological examinations more efficiently. To discover how we can prepare an individual for inspection and what adjustments we can offer, we have taken a mixed research approach. We carried out a qualitative and quantitative analysis and divided the entire research process into three parts: preparatory, implementation, and final. We have conducted three telephone conversations with the parents of people with Down syndrome and designed an online questionnaire for parents to inquire about their experience with an ophthalmological examination. The results showed which problems usually occur. We obtained further information on the specific skills needed to participate effectively in the ophthalmological examination with an interview of vision specialists in the selected eye care centre. The data obtained was used to design the outline of the preparation of a person with Down syndrome for an ophthalmological examination, which contains various information on possible modifications while offering some preparation activities. We also carried out a case study where we interviewed a person with Down syndrome and prepared her for the ophthalmological examination. In the end, we carried out the ophthalmological examination
Peer collaboration in distance learning of fourth graders
Get PDFSchool promotes a child's progress in cognitive, moral, emotional and social domains, and it is the latter that was particularly important in the context of distance education due to the Covid-19 epidemic, as interactions with peers allow children to establish different types of relationships compared to interactions with adults.
Distance learning, which can take place due to various social circumstances, is characterised by the spatial and temporal separation of teacher and pupil, and is performed with the aid of ICT. Social interaction is of paramount importance for pupils, as it influences extrinsic motivation for learning and is essential for the development of a positive self-image, self-confidence and sense of identity. Distance learning significantly changes and reduces the opportunities for social interaction that pupils are used to at school, so it is important for the teacher to provide opportunities for peer interaction during distance learning as well. One of the effective forms of peer interaction is cooperative learning, where members of a group are in a co-dependent position and perform a common task with clearly defined roles, while also learning cooperative skills. This type of learning has a positive impact on achieving cognitive learning objectives, emotional-motivational objectives and psychomotor-skill objectives, and represents an interesting and active learning experience for the pupils.
In the empirical part of the thesis, we used a questionnaire to investigate the attitudes of fourth grade primary school pupils towards peer collaboration during regular school lessons and the forms, frequency and purpose of peer collaboration during distance learning. We were also interested in pupils' ability to use ICT, their attitudes, perceived benefits and preferences for peer collaboration according to gender and number of siblings. The sample includes 118 fourth grade children from different primary schools.
The results of the empirical study have shown that most pupils had positive attitudes towards peer collaboration during regular school lessons, and that pupils' attitudes generally did not differ by gender, nor were there significant gender differences regarding the perceived benefits of peer collaboration. The pupils surveyed mostly liked peer collaboration because they saw it as an interesting and active form of school work. On average, pupils who have no siblings had slightly more positive attitudes towards peer collaboration than pupils who have one or more siblings. We found that most of the pupils surveyed were able to collaborate with their peers using ICT, and that most pupils saw remote peer collaboration as a positive experience, while also wanting to collaborate with their peers more often. On average, however, pupils with no siblings were more likely to want more peer collaboration than pupils with siblings. We also found that during the time of distance learning, most of the communication between pupils was in written form, with the aim of discussing their free time at home or help with school work. Several times a week or every day, they also had the possibility of virtual meetings with the teacher
Role of typography in graphic signs
Get PDFIn this thesis, I studied the role of typography in graphic sings.
The field of graphic signs is intertwined with typography; therefore, I started my research by studying typography, history of handwriting and anatomy of letters. I continued the similar work with logos, where I studied its origin, development, systematics and criteria of an effective graphic sign. Then, I related the typography to graphic sign and analysed their interaction in the means of graphic sings in handwriting.
Last of all, I designed my unique graphic sign, which has a part of typography. I also constructed corporate identity of my logo for the various applications
Parents' views and experiences of disciplining children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Get PDFThere is no single piece of advice for the best and most succesful upbringing and guidance of childs' behaviour. This is especially true for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (later reffered to as children with ADHD), who need individual approach and handling, steady routine and consistency, which means a joint effort from both parents and other family members is key for maintaining a balance in the family, good relationships and positive atmosphere. Experts believe that the methods parents are using for raising their child with ADHD and their discipline approaches are not causing inappropriate and undesirable behavior of children with ADHD. However, they certainly represent an important outside factor for children with ADHD for them to be even more problematic or to be able to overcome their problems. Therefore, the main goal of this master's thesis is to explore the field of disciplining children with ADHD, aged 6 to 14 years, from their parents' perspective. The aim was also to determine which discipline methods (punitive or non-punitive) Slovenian parents of children with ADHD use the most, as well as to explore their viewpoints about discipline. Furthermore, the purpose of this masters' thesis was also to discover possible changes regarding discipline approaches that appeared during COVID-19 pandemic.
The data were obtained using an online survey questionnaire and a descriptive and casual non-experimental method and a quantitative research approach was used in this research. 98 parents of children with ADHD, aged 6 to 14 years, responded to the questionnaire. We also researched the influence of child's gender, age and educational period on the parental frequency of using disciplinary methods, viewpoint (dis)agreement, effectiveness of already implemented disciplinary methods and seeking additional help and suppor during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research results have shown that parents used non-punitive discipline methods to a significatlly bigger extent before the COVID-19 pandemic started, wherein preventative discipline methods (induction, conversation with children, explanation of behaviour, providing support and feeling of safety, setting an example) were used the most. Regarding punitive disciplinary methods, parents most often demanded that the child apologizes to the person he or she hurt or they took away his privileges. Physical and verbal punishment was rarely used. The results have also shown that there are statistically significant differences in the frequency of using disciplinary methods regarding to childs' gender, which means that parents used non-punitive disciplinary methods more regularly with boys with ADHD than they did with girls. Furthermore, children with ADHD were disciplined by their parents the most when they were agressive towards others or were destroying property, when they disobeyed or when they weren't sticking to the agreements between them and their parents. In researching the effectivness of disciplinary methods used by parents before the COVID-19 pandemic, we found that parents rated their methods as generally effective. Parents said that talking to children, providing them support, setting an example and giving positive reinforcement were most effective disciplinary methods, whereas verbal punishment was seen as the least effective disciplinary method. As effective preventative interventions to prevent inappropriate behavior, parents highlighted induction techniques, pre-arranged agreements and rewarding children, as well as predicting situations and using a variety of relaxation techinques. Regarding viewpoints on discipline techniques we found that parents' attitude toward punitive techniques was more negative, while in the field of non-punitive methods parents considered that inductive techniques and praises were among the more effective disciplinary methods. We also found significant correlation between parents' viewpoints to punitive discipline and using punitive techniques, while this kind of correlation didn't exist between viewpoints to non-punitive discipline and using non-punitive techniques. Results have also shown that less than 30 % of all parents changed ther discipline approach and that about the same proportion of parents sought help and suppor outside their family during COVID-19 pandemic. We also found significant co-dependence between reaching out for additional help during pandemic and the child's gender, which means that the parents of boys with ADHD were more likely to reach out for help and support than the parents of girls with ADHD