Masters Degrees (Industrial Psychology)

Permanent URI for this collection

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/719

Browse

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

An examination of the psychometric properties of the Gameful Experience Questionnaire (GAMEFULQUEST) in an online training environment
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-04) Booysen, Nicóle; Adams, Samantha; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Industrial Psychology.
ENGLISH SUMMARY: The South African corporate environment has experienced a significant digital, social, and economic upheaval provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic. Organizations have transformed and digitalized their practices and procedures overnight and adapted their skills and knowledge to function remotely. Some businesses have adapted the training and development of their staff and sought new approaches such as gamified learning technologies to create a more fun, inclusive, and meaningful experience. Measures are required to assess the gameful experience of employees to continuously enable a rich gamified training experience. The GAMEFULQUEST instrument by Högberg et al. (2019) originally designed to measure the gameful experience in a service environment, is recommended. In this study the instrument was subjected to a validation procedure to test its psychometric properties with a view of determining its suitability for a corporate training environment when administered to a South African sample. For this study the research design followed a quantitative research analysis, and a cross-sectional research design was used. The respondents were sourced from a diversified sample group located within SPAR retail company and distributed to these employees nation-wide, utilizing a non-probability convenience sampling. The validation procedure included an examination of construct validity, reliability (i.e. alpha and omega), convergent validity, discriminant validity and predictive validity. Structural Equation Modelling, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and reliability techniques were applied to the GAMEFULQUEST measure in order to test the validities of the measure. The statistical analyses of the instrument found support for validity and reliability of the measure in the chosen sample. In addition, evidence of a predictive relationship between gameful experience and self-directed learning was found. The GAMEFULQUEST instrument can potentially be utilized as a feedback measure. This is achieved through identifying dimensions of a gameful experience that are deemed ineffective in gamified training platforms, which would be subject improvement to ensure a quality learning experience. Additionally, the measure can assist HR practitioners to improve an organization’s online training environment, by further creating a competitive advantage amongst industries that adopt gamification as a design strategy. Lastly, the study contributes to current literature by providing evidence of the validity and reliability of the GAMEFULQUEST measure in a South African sample.
Exploring employees’ subjective experience of psychological empowerment after adopting Artificial Intelligence technology
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12) Macnab-Holding, Cuan Selkirk; Adams, Samantha; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Industrial Psychology.
ENGLISH SUMMARY: The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is characterised by an environment which is highly complex, dynamic, and uncertain, accompanied by an influx of technological advancements. As technology advancements influence employees’ work environment and to varying degrees the way they are required to work, it will be important to understand to what extent this influences feelings of psychological empowerment within the work role. Psychological empowerment is defined as intrinsic task motivation reflecting a sense of control in relation to one’s work and an active orientation to one’s work role that is manifested in four cognitions: meaning, self-determination, competence, and impact. It is positively associated with showing initiative, coping with uncertainty, and embracing risks. Therefore, given the 4IR environment it will be important to have employees who are psychologically empowered and thus display the associated behaviour. Even though psychological empowerment is a well-established construct, it is proposed that employees' perceptions towards feeling psychologically empowered in their work may change to some extent because of this new environment. Due to scant literature on psychological empowerment in the 4IR context, it is therefore important to better understand this construct within this context so that practitioners are equipped to make more informed decisions about the strategic integration of humans and technology in their work tasks. A qualitative exploration of experiences therefore was warranted to better understand how individuals make sense of their encounters with Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. Accordingly, the aim is to establish a better understanding of the perceived psychological empowerment of employees who have recently adopted AI in their work. Employing a phenomenological research design, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted to understand the lived experiences of employees when engaging with AI technology. Purposive sampling was utilised to recruit a sample of 12 commerce and financial services sector professionals that had adopted AI technology in the last 6-36 months. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. The findings yielded four primary themes that were identified from the participants’ lived experiences, namely: (1) enhanced work experiences through AI integration, (2) impact of AI on emotional, cognitive, and motivation dynamics, (3) AI’s role in influencing self-efficacy and decision making, and (4) AI as a growth tool. The findings indicated both positive and negative consequences of AI’s role in participants’ perceptions of psychological empowerment. In sum, the findings support the advancement of the adoption of this technology which in certain contexts may be perceived as psychologically empowering. Additionally, this research can be the departure point for better understanding human-AI integration from a psychological perspective, which can contribute towards professionals strategically integrating humans and AI in the 4IR context.
Fostering employee engagement in virtual teams : a qualitative study
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-03) Dougall, Caitlin; Adams, Samantha; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Industrial Psychology.
ENGLISH SUMMARY: The speed and magnitude of change, which characterises the current working environment, has significantly increased the complexity and diversity of organisational decisions. As a result, many organisations have looked to teams when faced with complex problems and decisions, seeking the knowledge, creativity and experience that only teams could provide. Virtual teams, in particular, have become increasingly important as organisations operate in dispersed geographic contexts within which they need to draw on the knowledge and skills of various experts that are not confined to one immediate geographic location. Teams can be extremely powerful when they function effectively however transforming a group of individuals into a team is challenging. Whilst the prevalence of virtual teams has increased, South African trends reveal that virtual teams are not yet fully optimised. Virtual teams are particularly vulnerable to mistrust, power struggles and communication breakdowns. The dynamics of working within a group of people is, additionally, said to impact the level of energy and motivation team members possess and virtual teams have been associated with lower levels of energy and vigor. In this regard, employee engagement is said to have far reaching implications on employee performance. Many organisations fail to establish and foster engagement, and as a result a thorough understanding of employee engagement and the organisation’s role in this regard is critical in fostering effective virtual teams. This investigation adopted a qualitative approach to explore the emergence of employee engagement within the context of virtual teams and understand how engagement contributes to team effectiveness. Further analysis, additionally, outlined the key determinants of employee engagement which can be nurtured by the managers and organisational leaders to ensure greater effectiveness in virtual teams. Furthermore, in light of the various identified objectives qualitative semi-structured interviews were selected to provide a detailed insight into the phenomenon in question. This study thus provides practical and theoretical insight in this regard and contributes to the important debate surrounding employee engagement in alternative work settings.
Investigating the efficacy of gamification in an online positive psychology intervention (OPPI) aimed at increasing employee well-being
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) McKinley, Amy; Adams, Samantha; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Industrial Psychology.
ENGLISH SUMMARY: Employees are considered one of the most valuable resources in an organisation and ensuring that they are functioning efficiently is vital to an organisation’s success (Baptiste, 2008). One way for an organisation to support the optimal functioning of its employees is to ensure their well-being at work by implementing health and well-being interventions. Especially given the devastating impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on employees’ mental health (Mind, 2021). However, participation in employee health and well-being interventions is traditionally low (Poole et al., 2001; Howarth et al., 2018). Moreover, attrition in employee health and well-being interventions was strongly correlated to a lack of personal motivation to participate in health and well-being interventions and high levels of boredom experienced during the interventions (Edwards, 2012). Thus, there is a prevalent need for innovative strategies that motivate employees to actively participate in health and well-being interventions. One prominent innovation for health and well-being improvement is the development of serious games and gamified interventions using gamification (Wattanasoontorn et al., 2013). Research has shown that serious games and gamified interventions, if designed well, can increase one’s motivation and engagement, because they satisfy one’s innate desires through the implementation of intrinsically motivating game design elements (Johnson et al., 2016). Studies have shown that gamification can have a positive impact on employee well-being interventions (Kark, 2011; Ahtinen et al., 2013; Hall et al., 2013), but there is no empirical evidence showing that the increase in employee well-being was due to the implementation of gamification or just a result of the employee well-being intervention. Therefore, the aim of this exploratory research study was to conduct a controlled field experiment (N = 26), to investigate the efficacy of a gamified Online Positive Psychology Intervention (OPPI) aimed at increasing employee well-being. The results of this study found significant support for one of the four hypotheses that were tested, and two of the four hypotheses indicated a trend towards significance. Thus, there was a trend towards a possible relationship between the effectiveness of gamification and the enhanced outcomes of the employee well-being intervention used in this study. The results of this study make an important contribution to research in the employee well-being domain as it provides preliminary evidence of the potential positive effects that gamification can have on the outcomes of employee well-being interventions.
An investigation of adult learner engagement in a blended learning environment
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12) Segoe, Mbalenhle Tshiamo; Adams, Samantha; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Industrial Psychology.
ENGLISH SUMMARY: The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the rapid change in the economy and social realm, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic, have drastically altered the workplace. This actual and paradigmatic shift has emphasised the importance of adult working professionals taking responsibility for the development of their current skills, knowledge, and competencies. This may require them to become adult learners when participating in employment development programmes that are often presented in a blended learning format. To ensure that adult learners have a deep meaningful learning experience in the course, the learning programme must be designed, developed, and executed with adult learners in mind. The purpose of this research was to investigate adult learners’ (working professionals) experiences of engagement in a blended learning programme and to explore which elements of the programme were supportive of and or challenged their engagement experience. To explore the extent to which adult learners experience engagement in a blended learning environment, a qualitative research design, guided by an interpretive paradigm, was employed to elicit and examine adult learners’ experiences of engagement. Data were collected through open-ended semi-structured interviews, from a convenience sample of n = 10 adult learners partaking in blended learning programmes at a Higher Education Institution in the Western Cape. The data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2013), which yielded that the factors that influenced, supported and challenged the adult learners', specifically the working professionals, engagement experience were a) learning interest, b) interacting with their peers and instructors through various platforms online and face-to-face, c) receiving support from family and external tutors, d) having a sense of community, e) technology such as WiFi and online learning platforms, as well as technological issues such as software updates and having loads-shedding, and f) time to balance their careers and personal life and to prioritise their studies accordingly. The results of this research study offer programme developers and educators insight into the factors that bring about adult learner engagement, as well as how to ensure that blended programmes are designed, developed, and implemented effectively into the course. This will further ensure that future adult learners are provided with learning experiences that will guarantee deep meaningful engagement.
An investigation of the influence of a gamified intervention on psychological determinants of savings intention
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-03) Jonker, Nichola; Adams, Samantha; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Industrial Psychology.
ENGLISH SUMMARY: South Africa’s history of restricted financial inclusion has contributed to a poor culture of saving. South Africans’ savings are effectively cancelled out by the amount of credit taken up, meaning that many struggle to pay off debt rather than adding to their wealth through saving and investment. This poor culture of saving and indebtedness not only impacts the financial wellbeing of individuals and households, but it also impacts economic growth. Financial education is one approach to addressing this problem. Accordingly, Financial Service providers are required by the financial sector codes to spend a minimum of 0.4% net profit after tax on financial education in order to improve South African’s financial literacy, which has been widely acknowledged to be a barrier to financial inclusion. To truly address the problem and influence behaviour, this investment must be used wisely on interventions that are theoretically and empirically related to the underlying factors that drive savings behaviour. Gamification has become a popular technique used to motivate people to engage in targeted behaviours and is also an attractive option for organisations to invest in as they can scale their efforts more cost-effectively. Unfortunately, although some educational interventions have resulted in short term improvements in financial knowledge, there is less evidence with respect to the effect on individual’s financial attitudes or behaviours and this could be attributed to a lack of understanding of the psychological determinants of positive savings behaviour. The aim of this study, therefore, was to explore the variables proposed to contribute to savings behaviour and to empirically investigate the extent to which engagement with a gamified intervention would impact them. An experimental pre-test post-test control group design was used (N = 34). The gamified intervention evaluated was designed in a partnership between a South African bank and a game designing firm and its intent is to influence consumers’ beliefs and attitudes about saving in order to change their savings behaviour. The findings of this study did not provide any significant support for the hypotheses, although there was a trend towards a possible relationship between the effectiveness of the gamified intervention and the outcome of improved basic financial knowledge and savings attitudes. The results of this study deliver important insights for further research in the use of gamification to promote savings behaviour. A conceptual model of savings intention as well as some preliminary evidence of the positive effects that gamification can have on the outcomes of financial education interventions is provided.

Browse

Browsing Masters Degrees (Industrial Psychology) by browse.metadata.advisor "Adams, Samantha"

Results Per Page

Sort Options