Use of Persuasive Technology in School Settings

Use of Persuasive Technology in School Settings
Date:29th Jan 2020

This blog post basically looks into persuasive technologies that could be used in school settings. The key points are taken from the article "The application of persuasive technologies to educational settings", written by Joseph Mints and Mortin Aagaard. The article basically talks about adding persuasion to systems design. It further says that persuasive technology has the potential to positively effect and impact student behavior in schools. Basically about using computers to persuade users to achieve a goal or target. There was an interesting example of a mobile app, myfoodphone which lets the customers track their food consumption. The user takes the pictures of the food he eats and uploads it on an online database and then adds some information about the food consumed. A food dietician responds back and gives feedback through a personalized video message. There is a similar app Health, which records and monitors your daily walk, run, heart rate, sleep etc It keeps track of the path you walk, and keeps prompting you. Basically helps you self monitor your health. Self monitoring is one of the design principles suggested by Fogg to keep in mind while incorporating persuasive technologies. The other design principals include tunneling (use of scaffolding to bring the user to goal or target), credibility ( a system which is trustworthy include info from credible sources), personalization (personalize some features of the system like avatars, screen layouts etc increasing persuasiveness), tailoring (information is tailored to the individual needs of the students thus increasing chances of achieving the desired behavior), reduction (reducing complex behaviors into simple tasks, reducing the cognitive overload), self monitoring ( a system that tracks a students performance and make recommendations) and praise/rewards (providing praise or virtual rewards when the target behavior is achieved).

Fogg also highlights the concept of Kairos, that means persuasive messages have more impact provided used at the right time and place. This is true for mobile phone users. Students can access their work and respond in real time using a variety of social networking platforms. Schoology is one such platform where teachers could set up their classes, assign work to students, they could access at home on mobiles, ipads, laptops, pcs etc and complete submit assignments online. Teacher can check and give feedback/comments/grade on the work and can even add extension work for individual students of further practice is needed. The Reading Eggs program also has an element of personalization as well as self monitoring, it assess a students prior understanding of the work and then assigns a task based on the students performance in the assessment test. The interesting fact is that every student in class could be on a different level in the program based on their knowledge of the content, there is no competition, all students progress at their own pace and speed. They get rewards for performing well in a level, they can set up their avatars, they could use their points earned for virtual shopping in the program. They can also work collaboratively on some tasks. The personalization element motivates the students to do better and achieve their goals. I think its the tailoring element too, which makes it more easy for the students, each students gets a level assigned based on their performance. The same level with different questions is repeated if a student does not perform well. I never thought but these are all elements of persuasive technology we have been actually using in schools. 

These could be helpful in government schools where computers are kept locked and not used effectively either may be due to lack of training of teachers to design lesson plans effectively, or lack of interest or motivation. During a visit I had observed a set of computers just lying in a room and I am assuming they were hardly used. The HANDs application developed for kids with autism, to help regulate their behavior, or assist students to monitor their behavior could be helpful in these schools. Kids in these schools come from stressed out families, they are used to hitting each other, throwing bags at each other, walking on desks etc. Such applications even on the mobile phones could be very handy. Students could be prompted of their behavior and routed towards another positive thinking activity, or routed towards watching a calming , relaxing video, which lowers the anxiety and anger. They could play an online game which directs the minds towards a positive task. 

The article shares about a boy who used to get angry and felt anxiety during his soccer matches, he was prompted by the personal trainer in the application a day prior to the match thus lowering the anxiety level. There was another interesting example, where a boy had allergies from some food and his mother used to usually look for food for him. When he grew up, he wanted to go shopping for food himself but he got confused. The HANDS application helped him get over with the confusion. A personal trainer used to assist him through questions and cues to help find the right food. So basically HANDS is a technology platform that provides technology interventions based on the child needs and requirements. This could be used for both kids with autism and kids without autism to support in their learning in the classrooms.

This needs to be explored a little more. I do think there is a lot of work that could be done in both public and government schools in Pakistan using persuasive technologies. Kids are often fond of using technology, using it effectively could bring in a positive change in attitude and behavior. These schools often use a carrot stick approach to fix kids which never works. Similar applications like HANDS could be designed keeping in mind the Pakistani culture, parents and their social background, availability of resources at school and home and so on. I am sure such interventions would result in positive school cultures as well as change in the mindsets of the teachers as well as parents.

Enjoy Reading.

Regards and prayers

Sheeba Ajmal