title: Unsettling assumptions and boundaries: Strategies for developing a critical perspective about business and management communication

authors: Cockburn-Wootten, Cheryl

subjects: lecture learning groups

abstract: This article describes how a collaborative class strategy and an introductory activity were used to develop students’ thinking about business and management communication. The article focuses on teachers who want to integrate critical perspectives about business communication into their classes. A course ethos, learning groups, and an introductory activity were used to develop students’ thinking about business and management communication. These strategies encouraged collaborative peer learning in a large bicultural/multicultural lecture environment and developed learning relationships typically found in a small class context. In addition, the activities produced ongoing lecture learning groups in which business students could question their “trained incapacities,” boundaries, and assumptions gained from their experiences of communicating and managing relationships during these activities.

text: Unsettling assumptions and boundaries: Strategies for developing a critical perspective about business and management communication This article describes how a collaborative class strategy and an introductory activity were used to develop students’ thinking about business and management communication. The article focuses on teachers who want to integrate critical perspectives about business communication into their classes. A course ethos, learning groups, and an introductory activity were used to develop students’ thinking about business and management communication. These strategies encouraged collaborative peer learning in a large bicultural/multicultural lecture environment and developed learning relationships typically found in a small class context. In addition, the activities produced ongoing lecture learning groups in which business students could question their “trained incapacities,” boundaries, and assumptions gained from their experiences of communicating and managing relationships during these activities.

year: 2011

title: Feedback-Based Gameplay Metrics and Gameplay Performance Segmentation: An audio-visual approach for assessing player experience.

authors: Marczak, Raphaël

subjects: Player experience

abstract: Gameplay metrics is a method and approach that is growing in popularity amongst the game studies research community for its capacity to assess players’ engagement with game systems. Yet, little has been done, to date, to quantify players’ responses to feedback employed by games that conveys information to players, i.e., their audio-visual streams. The present thesis introduces a novel approach to player experience assessment - termed feedback-based gameplay metrics - which seeks to gather gameplay metrics from the audio-visual feedback streams presented to the player during play. So far, gameplay metrics - quantitative data about a game state and the player's interaction with the game system - are directly logged via the game's source code. The need to utilise source code restricts the range of games that researchers can analyse. By using computer science algorithms for audio-visual processing, yet to be employed for processing gameplay footage, the present thesis seeks to extract similar metrics through the audio-visual streams, thus circumventing the need for access to, whilst also proposing a method that focuses on describing the way gameplay information is broadcast to the player during play.

In order to operationalise feedback-based gameplay metrics, the present thesis introduces the concept of gameplay performance segmentation which describes how coherent segments of play can be identified and extracted from lengthy game play sessions. Moreover, in order to both contextualise the method for processing metrics and provide a conceptual framework for analysing the results of a feedback-based gameplay metric segmentation, a multi-layered architecture based on five gameplay concepts (system, game world instance, spatial-temporal, degree of freedom and interaction) is also introduced.

Finally, based on data gathered from game play sessions with participants, the present thesis discusses the validity of feedback-based gameplay metrics, gameplay performance segmentation and the multi-layered architecture. A software system has also been specifically developed to produce gameplay summaries based on feedback-based gameplay metrics, and examples of summaries (based on several games) are presented and analysed. The present thesis also demonstrates that feedback-based gameplay metrics can be conjointly analysed with other forms of data (such as biometry) in order to build a more complete picture of game play experience. Feedback based game-play metrics constitutes a post-processing approach that allows the researcher or analyst to explore the data however they wish and as many times as they wish. The method is also able to process any audio-visual file, and can therefore process material from a range of audio-visual sources.

This novel methodology brings together game studies and computer sciences by extending the range of games that can now be researched but also to provide a viable solution accounting for the exact way players experience games.

text: Feedback-Based Gameplay Metrics and Gameplay Performance Segmentation: An audio-visual approach for assessing player experience. Gameplay metrics is a method and approach that is growing in popularity amongst the game studies research community for its capacity to assess players’ engagement with game systems. Yet, little has been done, to date, to quantify players’ responses to feedback employed by games that conveys information to players, i.e., their audio-visual streams. The present thesis introduces a novel approach to player experience assessment - termed feedback-based gameplay metrics - which seeks to gather gameplay metrics from the audio-visual feedback streams presented to the player during play. So far, gameplay metrics - quantitative data about a game state and the player's interaction with the game system - are directly logged via the game's source code. The need to utilise source code restricts the range of games that researchers can analyse. By using computer science algorithms for audio-visual processing, yet to be employed for processing gameplay footage, the present thesis seeks to extract similar metrics through the audio-visual streams, thus circumventing the need for access to, whilst also proposing a method that focuses on describing the way gameplay information is broadcast to the player during play.

In order to operationalise feedback-based gameplay metrics, the present thesis introduces the concept of gameplay performance segmentation which describes how coherent segments of play can be identified and extracted from lengthy game play sessions. Moreover, in order to both contextualise the method for processing metrics and provide a conceptual framework for analysing the results of a feedback-based gameplay metric segmentation, a multi-layered architecture based on five gameplay concepts (system, game world instance, spatial-temporal, degree of freedom and interaction) is also introduced.

Finally, based on data gathered from game play sessions with participants, the present thesis discusses the validity of feedback-based gameplay metrics, gameplay performance segmentation and the multi-layered architecture. A software system has also been specifically developed to produce gameplay summaries based on feedback-based gameplay metrics, and examples of summaries (based on several games) are presented and analysed. The present thesis also demonstrates that feedback-based gameplay metrics can be conjointly analysed with other forms of data (such as biometry) in order to build a more complete picture of game play experience. Feedback based game-play metrics constitutes a post-processing approach that allows the researcher or analyst to explore the data however they wish and as many times as they wish. The method is also able to process any audio-visual file, and can therefore process material from a range of audio-visual sources.

This novel methodology brings together game studies and computer sciences by extending the range of games that can now be researched but also to provide a viable solution accounting for the exact way players experience games.

year: 2014

title: Diversity in Aotearoa New Zealand picturebooks published between 2021 and 2022

authors: Daly, Nicola

subjects: Design

abstract: It is widely accepted that diversity in the literature read by and with children is of great importance, both for ensuring all children see themselves in the stories they share and in ensuring children are aware of lives and experiences outside their own. There is a growing body of international literature critically exploring the diversity present in English-language children’s literature, but to date very little analysing diversity in Aotearoa New Zealand. This study examines 90 picturebooks published between 2021 and 2022 in terms of representations of ethnicity, skin colour, gender, disability, family structures, and language use. Findings indicate similar representations of gender, disability, and family structure to those found internationally but higher representation in relation to the ethnicity and skin colour of primary and secondary characters. New findings in relation to language use are presented. Future research concerning the details of representation in picturebooks and other formats of children’s literature in Aotearoa New Zealand is called for.

text: Diversity in Aotearoa New Zealand picturebooks published between 2021 and 2022 It is widely accepted that diversity in the literature read by and with children is of great importance, both for ensuring all children see themselves in the stories they share and in ensuring children are aware of lives and experiences outside their own. There is a growing body of international literature critically exploring the diversity present in English-language children’s literature, but to date very little analysing diversity in Aotearoa New Zealand. This study examines 90 picturebooks published between 2021 and 2022 in terms of representations of ethnicity, skin colour, gender, disability, family structures, and language use. Findings indicate similar representations of gender, disability, and family structure to those found internationally but higher representation in relation to the ethnicity and skin colour of primary and secondary characters. New findings in relation to language use are presented. Future research concerning the details of representation in picturebooks and other formats of children’s literature in Aotearoa New Zealand is called for.

year: 2025