Scholarship & Research
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Item Investigating the influence of cognitive demands and personal factors on work-body postures(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2021) Nino, Luisa Valentina; Co-chairs, Graduate Committee: David Claudio and Scott Monfort; Frank Marchak and David Claudio were co-authors of the article, 'Evaluating physical and mental workload interactions in a sterile processing department' in the journal 'International journal of industrial ergonomics' which is contained within this dissertation.; Frank Marchak and David Claudio were co-authors of the article, 'Association between perceived workload and adverse body postures' in the journal 'Proceedings of the International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care' which is contained within this dissertation.Mental workload is a broad concept used by human factors and ergonomics professionals. It has become a topic of increasing importance since the introduction of technology in modern working environments. Mental workload assessment is an important component in the design of occupational tasks since inappropriate levels can cause errors, incidents, and be responsible for occupational diseases and musculoskeletal disorders. Until now, research studies have explored the effects of physical activity on mental workload. No study has analyzed the effects of mental workload on body postures even though studies have stated that in response to new information from the workplace environment, the human body orients in the direction of a stimulus, and this orientation reaction could affect the ongoing activity. This dissertation looked to 1) determine if psychosocial work factors affect perceived mental workload, 2) determine if changes in perceived mental workload generated changes in the body postures undertaken to perform an activity, and 3) explore if individual factors such as age, sex, personality traits, and anxiety mediate or exacerbate the influence of psychosocial work factors. Thirty-two participants performed two physical activities under four levels of mental workload. The results indicate, for the first time, that an increase in the perception of mental workload is associated with worse body postures that consequently could lead to work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). Regarding the potential influence of individual factors, differences were not observed between mental workload conditions. However, individual characteristics such as anxiety, personality traits, and sex exhibited higher contributions to changes in perceived mental workload and body postures. This study is novel and contributes to overcoming an important shortcoming in the field of mental workload by considering the influence of psychosocial factors, keeping the physical load constant, on the perception of mental workload and its influence on body postures. This interaction between perceived mental workload and its effects on physical risk should be considered in occupational settings since often, employees are exposed to concurrent physical and mental demands that increase the likelihood of developing WMSDs.Item Student engagement in an online Calculus I course: behavioral, cognitive, and social dimensions(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2021) Barton Odro, Emmanuel; Co-chairs, Graduate Committee: Elizabeth Burroughs and Derek A. WilliamsAt the university level and in STEM fields students drop out in part due to not being able to pass mathematics courses, particularly, Calculus I. According to the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), Calculus I occupies a unique position as a gateway course to STEM degrees. Almost all STEM majors need to take at least the first course in Calculus. Hence, there is the need to understand how to create successful Calculus courses, particularly in online settings. This study answers the call by studying the ways students engage with the mathematical content, each other and the course while learning about the concept of derivative. More precisely, the purpose of this research was to investigate the nature of students' engagement experiences--behavioral, cognitive, and social dimensions--in an asynchronous online Calculus I course. To examine the nature of students' engagement experiences, I conducted a phenomenological qualitative study combining data from students' discussion posts, demographic survey responses, and interviews. I analyzed the data using three analytical lenses: Toulmin's (1958/2003) argumentation model, Swan's (2002) coding schema and social network analysis. Findings indicate that the cognitive demand of weekly tasks influences the patterns of cognitive engagement demonstrated through discussion posts. Additionally, two situations promoted more social engagement among students: grouping students for discussion posts and initial posts with evidence of social presenceItem Increasing mental muscle with engaging bell ringers in a science classroom(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2018) Montemurro, Alison Margaret; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Greg FrancisMy study utilized bell ringers, which required higher order thinking, would result in increased engagement. Engagement in learning is key for success in scientific literacy, critical thinking and teaching students to be stewards of the environment and bell ringers can be instruments to help build mental muscle. Forty students in two freshman ninth-grade science classes at Lowell High School were studied using a variety of different bell ringers such as misconception probes, bell ringer activities and readings. I measured these gains in pre and post assessments, student surveys, and my own reflections. My treatment groups were two units in which I used bell ringers, which required higher order thinking and my control group had bell ringers which were simple recall of science knowledge. Students in both classes made significant gains in content knowledge in both the control and treatment groups, but the two treatment groups made greater gains. Likert surveys showed that the study resulted little change in student engagement. Student surveys showed students both enjoyed the varied bell ringers and found them helpful in learning material as well as the application of science to real life.Item Torchbearer: a multi-pipeline approach to landmark-based navigation(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2018) Vollmer, Fredric Muller; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mike WittieThe task of navigation adds cognitive distraction to the already demanding task of driving. Most popular navigation aids provide verbal directions based solely on distances and street names, but the inclusion of landmark descriptions in these instructions can improve navigation performance, decrease unsafe driving behaviors and reduce cognitive load. Current approaches to selecting landmarks and building landmark-based instructions rely on a single source of data, thereby limiting the set of potential landmarks, or use a single factor in choosing the best landmark, failing to account for all characteristics that make a landmark suitable for navigation. We develop a multi-pipeline system that leverages both human (crowd-sourced) input and machine-based approaches to find, describe and choose the best landmark. Additionally, we develop a mobile application for the delivery of navigation instructions based on landmarks. We evaluate the cost and performance differences between these pipelines, as well as study the effect of landmark navigation prompts on cognitive load, safe driving behavior and driver satisfaction via an in situ experiment.Item Concept mapping as an assessment of cognitive load and mental effort in complex problem solving in chemistry(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2018) Shawli, Ahmed Shukri; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Michael BrodyThis research is an exploratory, descriptive study of students' cognitive load and mental effort related to complex problem solving in high school chemistry. From a cognitive point of view, the complexity associated with problem solving in chemistry can be understood from the context of cognitive load theory (CLT). The objective of this descriptive research using five high school student case studies is to understand the cognitive load phenomena students encounter while learning subject matter that requires complex problem solving, specifically chemical equilibrium. This study employed a mixed methods multiple case study design, in which each participating student (n = 5) is conceptualized as a case. Each student case self-reported their mental effort on eight chemical equilibrium problems. The mean for each students' mental effort and problem solving was reported. Each student completed an equilibrium concept map which was scored. The concept map scores are reported. The analysis compared mental effort score, quiz score and concept map score. There was an inverse relationship between mental effort and concept map score. The more complex the concept map (higher score) the less mental effort students report using to solve the problems. There was a positive relationship between mental effort score and quiz score; and a negative relationship between concept map score and quiz score. We believe these correlations indicate that the variables are related to cognitive load. Methodologically, we found that concept mapping is a valid assessment of cognitive load and mental effort. We believe that further larger studies are needed to substantiate these findings and explain how concept mapping can be used as a representation of cognitive load and student learning.Item Driving in a simulator versus on-road : the effect of increased mental effort while driving on real roads and a driving simulator(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2015) Mueller, Jessica Anne; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Laura StanleyThe objective of this thesis is to study human response to increased workload while driving in a driving simulator compared to real world behavior. Driving simulators are a powerful research tool, providing nearly complete control over experimental conditions-- an ideal environment to quantify and study human behavior. However, participants are known to behave differently in a driving simulator than in an actual real-world scenario. The same participants completed both on-road and virtual drives of the same degree of roadway complexity, with and without a secondary task conditions. Data were collected to describe how the participants' vehicle-handling, gaze performance and physiological reactions changed relative to increases in mental workload. Relationships between physiology and performance identified physiological, performance, and gaze-related metrics that can show significant effects of driving complexity, environment, and task. Additionally, this thesis explores the inadequacy of multinomial predictive models between the simulator and instrumented vehicle. Relative validity is established in the performance-physiology relationship for on- and off-road fixation frequencies, but few correlations between the simulator and instrumented vehicle are apparent as mental workload increases. These findings can be applied to the real world by providing specific variables that are adequate proxies to detect changes in driver mental workload in on-road driving situations; valuable for in-vehicle driver assistance system research. Overall, the simulator was a suitable proxy to detect differences in mental workload in driving task; and initial steps have been taken to establish validity, and to supplement on-road driving research in these high-demand driving scenarios.