James O. Stanworth

Synchronous learning best practices: An action research study

Low cost and significant advances in technology now allow instructors to create their own virtual learning environments. Creating social interactions within a virtual space that emulates the physical classroom remains challenging. While students are familiar with virtual worlds and video meetings, they are inexperienced as virtual learners. Over a nine year period we applied iterative cycles of action research through numerous large classes to systematically uncover attributes of success when executing synchronous learning in distributed environments. Findings show technology is not the source of problems; rather, difficulties emerge from human behaviors and their interactions with system features. We conclude with practical takeaway guidelines for video conferencing and immersive virtual environments and a model of nexus of control that elaborates software and classroom management attributes that can lead to successful execution.

Deep supply relationships: influencing outcomes by managing supply service quality

Service science emphasises the process of value co-creation within relationships. This frames the importance of service quality and its outcomes to business-to-business (B2B) interaction. This exploratory paper investigates the dimensions of service encounter quality in B2B relationships and its effect on (dis)satisfaction. Purchasers are sampled from America and Canada who are in extended relationships with suppliers. Qualitative data are in the form of critical incidents that code to 272 critical judgements of these purchasers’ perceptions of their suppliers. Findings reveal eight dimensions of service encounter quality: basic capability, relationship, communication, attitude, specification conformance, time and money, flexibility and resolution. The findings reveal how service encounter quality impacts (dis)satisfaction in a way that provides insight for suppliers in managing impacts of investment in service.

Toward a measure of Chinese hypermarket retail service quality

Success in the increasingly competitive and significant Chinese hypermarket sector requires a systematic focus on service quality. Current measures of hypermarket retail service quality do not adequately capture how the Chinese customers evaluate their experience. This study describes the development of an instrument to measure hypermarket service quality suitable for customers socialised to Chinese culture. Drawing on existing exploratory work, we propose dimensions of Chinese hypermarket service quality and associated items to measure our proposed construct. Confirmatory factor analysis, using a second sample, confirms the dimensionality and validity of our proposed scale with 4 dimensions and 18 items.

Leveling up

Todays young gamers are tomorrows students who expect more immersion from their online learning experiences. Teachers and administrators, however, must ask are some students at a disadvantage in such a class and does gender play a role? We examine the degree to which gaming experience and gender influence sense of presence in a virtual world learning classroom. Feelings of presence are key to involvement in virtual worlds. Participants, 348 undergraduates, interacted within a custom designed virtual world classroom focusing business negotiation skills. Results reveal that while gaming experience gives a slight advantage, lack of previous software ownership and gender do not put learners at a disadvantage. This finding shows that non-gamers and females can equally participate in a virtual world classroom, relieving concerns of adoption. Display Omitted Students without gaming experience are not significantly disadvantaged when in virtual world instruction.Gender does not influence feelings of presence in a virtual world classroom.Experience of software ownership does not influence feelings of presence.Teachers can confidently implement virtual world learning environments without concern.

Validation of a Measure of Chinese Outpatients’ Satisfaction in the Taiwan Setting

The medical services market is rapidly expanding around the world, following the experience of the industrialized Western economies. Cultural differences make existing assumptions about health care quality risky to export, leading to an increasing interest in understanding patient satisfaction with care within non-Western contexts. Within the Greater China region, both Western and traditional Chinese medicine coexist, yet there is a lack of research instruments that include distinct values of Chinese patients. This article reports the development of a measure of Chinese patient satisfaction with outpatient care. We describe the foundation of the scale in a qualitative report that includes 8 dimensions of Chinese patient satisfaction. A sample of 400 Chinese patients completed the final instrument. A quantitative analytical procedure leads to a 6-dimension and 27-item instrument to measure Chinese patients’ satisfaction with outpatient care. Our proposed instrument has good internal consistency supporting the use of the instrument in contexts where Chinese patients are being treated.