Rocco Servidio

Exploring the effects of demographic factors, Internet usage and personality traits on Internet addiction in a sample of Italian university students

Despite increasing interest in Internet addiction disorder, especially among high school students, few investigations have been oriented towards exploring the potential risks associated with an overuse of the Internet for the university population. A sample of 190 Italian university students was selected to investigate the effects of demographic profile, Internet usage and the Big Five personality traits on Internet addiction. Results indicated that none of the enrolled students showed a high level of addiction, although moderate behavioural disorder was found. The multiple linear regression findings displayed that males were more inclined to use the Internet than females, and some students’ behaviours were predictors of Internet addiction. Moreover, personality traits such as Agreeableness and Extraversion were negatively related to Internet addiction, whereas Openness was positively associated. These results highlight that several factors may predispose university students to developing problematic behaviour connected with an excessive use of the Internet.

Learning using augmented reality technology: multiple means of interaction for teaching children the theory of colours

Augmented Reality technology permits the concurrent interaction with the real environment and computer-generated virtual objects, thus making it an interesting technology for developing educational applications that allows manipulation and visualization. The work described extends the traditional concept of book with rendered graphics to help children understand fundamentals of the theory of colours. A three-dimensional virtual chameleon shows children how, from the combination of primary colours, it is possible to get secondary colours and viceversa. The chameleon responds to childrens actions changing appearance according to the colours of the surroundings. Our tangible interface becomes an innovative teaching tool conceived for supporting school learning methods, where the child can learn by playing with the virtual character, turning over the pages of the book and manipulating the movable parts. The main scientific contribution of this work is in showing what the use of augmented reality-based interfaces can bring to improve existing learning methods.

An exploratory study of the role of pervasive environments for promotion of tourism destinations

Purpose – The aim of this research is to investigate how virtual reality, with emphasis on pervasive environments, might affect tourism choice of a destination, in order to exploit it as a marketing tool to promote tourism destination in a global perspective. In particular, the paper analyzes the case of Calabrian territory (Southern Italy), due to the high archaeological value, heritage of the ancient Magna Graecia culture (VIII cent. B.D.‐I cent. A.D.). Despite this heritage, Calabria has been not fully exploited its resources in a tourism perspective.Design/methodology/approach – The research methodology is based on a qualitative approach, focused on a questionnaire promoted along with tourists. In particular, the authors asked them to explore the pervasive environments which reproduce some Calabrian scenarios, and answer some specific questions related to the experience. The interviews have been processed with the MaxQDA software for the content analysis.Findings – Two aspects of the results emerge fr...

Cyberbullying and self-esteem

In this study, the cyberbullying risk related to self-esteem, social, and personal variables was investigated. Cyberbullying describes a pervasive form of aggressive behaviour aimed at offending victims who are unable to protect themselves. A considerable sample of Italian young people were interviewed using standardized questionnaires. The results of the current study showed that, although few subjects were affected by cyberbullying (perpetrators and victims), a relationship exists between lower levels of self-esteem and cyberbullying risks. The role of parental control represents a good opportunity for the subjects in preventing aggressive behaviour. In general, this study underlines the importance to design and realize specific didactical programs to prevent aggressive behaviour, and to increase parental awareness about cyberbullying risks. The study explored the cyberbullying risks among adolescent students.Standardized questionnaires to explore the cyberbullying effects were used.Survey data from 438 participants indicated that males and females showed cyberbullying risks.Parent control reduce the subjects risk to be involved in aggressive behaviour.Lower levels of self-esteem predicted cyberbullying risks.

The use of cellular automata in the learning of emergence

In recent years, research efforts on complex systems have contributed to improve our ability in investigating, at different levels of complexity, the emergent behaviour showed by system in the course of its evolution. The study of emergence, an intrinsic property of a large number of complex systems, can be tackled by making use of Cellular Automata (CA): these enable researchers to identify the emergent dynamics of a complex system, whose behaviour is determined by local rules that define the way in which the elementary parts interact with each other. This work presents the results of an experimentation aimed to investigate the efficacy of a methodology which uses the simulation and CA in the learning of emergence. As results, the 93% of the students that which took parts to the experimentation is able to recognize characteristics of complex system.

Conceptual Design Scheme for Virtual Characters

The aim of this paper is to describe some theoretical considerations about virtual character design. In recent years, many prototypes of cognitive and behavioral architectures have been developed to simulate human behavior in artificial agents. Analyzing recent studies, we assume that there exists a variety of computational models and methods in order to increase the cognitive abilities of the virtual characters. In our opinion, it is necessary to perform a synthesis of these approaches in order to improve the existing models and avoiding the application of new approaches. Considering these aspects, in this paper we describe a taxonomy that explores the principal cognitive and computational parameters involved in the design, development and evaluation of a virtual character.

Usability evaluation of a Calabrian tourist Visitor Information Center website.

This study investigates the usability of a Calabrian (Italy) tourist Visitor Information Centre (VIC) website to evaluate whether its organization satisfies tourist needs. The website measurements were based on the time spent by the subject in finding specific information and on subjective usability evaluation. The results of this research show that the Calabrian tourist VIC website does not satisfy the usability criteria and manifests some usability problems. We have summarized these problems in two categories: user interaction with information and the management of information contents. The results of these measurements enable us to develop some guidelines to improve user interaction.

Assessing the psychometric properties of the Internet Addiction Test: A study on a sample of Italian university students

Abstract The aim of the study was to assess the psychometric properties of the 20-item Internet Addiction Test (IAT) among a sample of 659 Italian university students enrolled in several degree courses in the same university. The data collected was subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses by using robust statistical models. Results from exploratory factorial analysis suggested removing items 4 and 7 of the IAT. The final 18-items of the IAT were covered by a two-factor model which demonstrated good psychometric properties, and fits well with the data. Pearsons correlation results indicated that the two-factor model satisfied the criteria of convergent and divergent validity. The present study confirms that the IAT is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring Internet addiction. At the same time, the study suggests that some items of the IAT needs to be improved. Practical implications for further studies are provided as a conclusion.

Learning microelectronics through technology and research

The CoMSON project is a distributed European research project that combines research efforts from both academia and industry. This project is distributed among eight institutions across Europe. The aim of this project is to implement an experimental simulation platform (in software code) for devices in micro and nano-electronics with an integrated eLearning system. This project has two main goals. First, to train graduate students and post-docs in mathematical modeling, through the creation of this simulation platform, and second the delivery of this simulation platform to be used as a training tool for new recruits. In this paper we describe the information system architecture created to provide the partners with a strong collaborative and development research environment. This architecture provides a framework with three main goals: information sharing, collaboration in research and, training. This scheme easily allows users to access, update and interact with information and with other researchers within all the stages of the project.

PerLE: An “Open Source”, ELearning Moodle-Based, Platform. A Study of University Undergraduates’ Acceptance

The implementation of innovative eLearning platforms offers numerous benefits, but it is important to understand individual acceptance and use of new technological systems in the educational setting. This study adopts a modified version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), including three service quality constructs as external variables, to assess students’ acceptance of PerLE, a Moodle-based eLearning platform developed at the University of Calabria (Italy). A six-section questionnaire, which was based on previous studies, was administered to 293 undergraduate students. Results show that the quality of online courses is the main construct that affects students’ acceptance of PerLE. We found also that the PerLE user interface was a critical issue, requiring improvements to facilitate ease of use. In addition, the study underlines the important influence of Technical Support as an antecedent to the two main constructs of the TAM: PerLE Usefulness and PerLE Ease of Use.