Assessing the Impact of Engagement and Real-Time Feedback in a Mobile Behavior Change Intervention for Supporting Critical Thinking in Engineering Research Projects

Abstract

Digital behavior change interventions (DBCIs) provide customized advice, ongoing support, and web-and mobile-based platforms for learners who want to change their undesirable behaviors. DBCIs have been successful in the past for delivering interventions which support sustained changes to health behaviors, such as disease prevention and health promotion. During research tasks, university students can require interventions associated with critical thinking skills and behaviors. By using a DBCI, educators can assist students with improving their learning skills in research projects. This study aims to understand student interactions and engagement with mobilebased DBCIs with the objective of improving their critical thinking skills. An experimental group was used to explore the effects of students' interactions with an engaging mobile-based DBCI with real-time feedback, and was designed using the LifeGuide Toolbox platform which supports their critical thinking skills over a period of two months whilst they conduct a research project. A comparison between formative expert assessments and self-reported evaluation was also performed. This experiment reveals that using a DBCI to encourage critical thinking skills within a research project context can significantly improve engagement with intervention components, as well as recommend areas which require further exploration where specific critical thinking skills and digital interventions components are the most promising.

Det 'hybride Zoom'

“…Online-feedback kan også betragtes som en digital adfaerdsregulerende intervention (Asiri et al, 2021), der ifølge Jacobsen & Bahrenscheer (2017) aktiverer de studerende, traener og forbedrer deres kognitive evner, afklarer faglige misforståelser (Halim et al, 2021) samt fremmer en kultur, hvor de studerende får ejerskab over deres egen laering (Austring et al, 2010;Viftrup & Hvidt, 2020;Wichmann-Hansen et al, 2020). Forskningen inden for online feedback adresserer både den synkrone og asynkrone feedback og deres forskellige laeringsmaessige gevinster som fx refleksion ved asynkron feedback, og motivation og engagement ved synkrone aktiviteter (fx Christensen et al, 2016, s. 17f).…”

The relationship between student interaction with generative artificial intelligence and learning achievement: serial mediating roles of self-efficacy and cognitive engagement

“…If a student has questions about course study, interaction with the teacher may require an appointment, while interaction with ChatGPT can be done at any time. These real-time interactive processes of GAI increase cognitive engagement in learning for students (Bian et al, 2018;Asiri et al, 2021), and the increased cognitive engagement in-turn relates to higher learning achievement (Zhu et al, 2009;Sedaghat et al, 2011;Wang and Eccles, 2012;Pietarinen et al, 2014). Furthermore, students possessing greater self-efficacy are likely to exhibit increased cognitive engagement (Linnenbrink and Pintrich, 2003;Walker et al, 2006).…”