Department of Operations and Management Information Systems
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Item Integrated Model For Tailoring Gamified Information Systems In Higher Education Institutions In A Developing Economy.(University Of Ghana, 2023-02) Ofosu-Ampong, K.Gamification, a new concept for adding game design elements to make activities more engaging is pervading many information systems. As a multidisciplinary research area, gamification integrates human motivation, technology, task characteristics and human-computer interaction design. The motivation and fun surrounding gamified information systems (GIS) result from their potential benefits to institutions. However, a dearth of research and theory exists on how gamified interventions change behaviours in education, coupled with many challenges in conducting gamification research, particularly in developing economies (DE). Also, most of the GIS have been evaluated and adopted based on a one-size-fits-all approach. However, learners differ in their acceptance, motivation, engagement, and continuance use of technology. The thesis, therefore, examines the learner acceptance, engagement, and continuance use of GIS. Its purpose is to develop a theoretical and practical-oriented framework for tailoring gamification to a target audience in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Ghana. To achieve this purpose, the study employed three theories, namely, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA). Posited in the tenants of the positivist research paradigm, 30 hypotheses were developed and tested through a quantitative survey by comparing their predictions with the observed gamified data collected from 442 participants in an HEI in Ghana. First, using the UTAUT theory, I investigated students’ (n=185) gaming experience, perception, and acceptance of adding game design elements to learning management systems (LMS) in HEIs in Ghana. The findings show that the learner characteristics necessary for technology acceptance encompass demographic features (age, gender), expectations (performance (PE), effort (EE)) and psychological components (social influence (SI), motivation) in Ghana’s higher education. The study found that institutional-based trust in existing technologies is a payoff to accepting new technologies. Prompting the need to re-establish trust in the digital era of accelerated innovation in education. The study further found that after the acceptance of the existing technologies (LMS), students' need to accept GIS is influenced by expected high performance, less effort, attitude, and the existence of social influence. Compared to the UTAUT model, this research found three typologies based on the significant factors in the data analysis that is critical for explaining behavioural intention and technology acceptance. The results from this study proved that two constructs (PE and EE) of the original UTAUT model may be considered as technology and learner attributes, while the remaining two (SI and facilitating conditions (FC)) may be considered as institutional factors or outcomes. A significant omission and less reliance in the conceptualisation of the original UTAUT model is the institutional-based trust (TR) and attitude (ATT). However, these factors produced a substantial improvement in the variance explained in technology acceptance and behavioural intention. Importantly, the extensions (TR and ATT) form the new psychological safety factors in the UTAUT model and serve as the necessary conditions for the uptake of information systems in DE. These typologies, hitherto missing in the original UTAUT model, suggested the concept of technology acceptance has gained prominence in HEIs in DE but in the context of technology and learner attributes, institutional factors, and psychological safety factors. Second, using the SDT, the study examined how game design elements support and enhance students’(n=124) basic psychological needs in learning and the need to clarify the role of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in GIS engagement. This study found three types of learning outcome measures (type of game elements, psychological need, and level of satisfaction) that is critical for a learner to make a decision and engage with the GIS. Importantly, feedback, interactivity and aesthetic appeal were identified as positive elements for maintaining and motivating engagement. The reward systems which include points, badges and leaderboards were found to be stronger than competition-based elements in motivating learning outcomes. In this regard, competition-based learning on gamified platforms is not a salient practice to enhance students learning outcomes. The study further showed that merely providing students with reward systems does not necessarily lead to user competence, and a higher level of satisfaction is associated with a higher level of learner engagement, thus reducing students’ turnover intention. Hence, a diverse and not a one-size-fits-all reward system should be tailored towards the individual learning progress. Third, to show the feasibility of the GIS approach in education, I applied the MOA framework and developed a model to examine students' continuance use behaviour. To demonstrate the importance of learner characteristics and outcomes of gamification, I conducted an evaluation (n=133) of a gamified version and investigated the efficacy of aesthetic experience, information technology capability, and information quality regarding learner continuance behaviours. The study found the opportunity ability motivation (OAM) framework as the appropriate interplay between learner characteristics, the platform, and the gamification elements. In applying the OAM framework, the findings suggest that for a behaviour change to take place, there is a need for an opportunity to experience it or try it (triability). However, for triability to lead to acceptance or intention to use, there should be ability to perform the behaviour and this ability includes learner characteristics and the ease of cognitive understanding of the GIS. Motivation therefore becomes an outcome because an opportunity has been created to perform the behaviour. The findings also revealed that self-expansion and meaning are the key determinants of aesthetic experience (appeal) of GIS. These new findings suggested that the concept of aesthetic experience, an aspect of both hedonic and utilitarian value has gained prominence in Ghana’s higher education. The result of this finding draws scholarly attention to aesthetic experience as a parsimonious yet powerful construct that compliments the notion of continuance use behaviour and engagement with GIS. The originality and contribution of the study to research and practice are as follows. First, the findings of the three objectives culminate into an Integrated Theoretical Model of HEI-Gamification Configuration (HEIGC) for tailoring gamification offerings in HEIs based on three clusters: Learner characteristics, Learner outcomes (critical decision stage) and Learner continuance behaviour. The model priorities for policymakers suggest that attitudes about accepting these types of platforms in education is primarily driven by their affordances i.e., psychological safety (autonomy, competence and social influence) and personality traits (PE, EE, Trust, aesthetic appeal and gamification elements) in DE HEIs. Second, this study addresses the limited results and evaluation of gamification and uncovers the efficacy of engaging and motivating learning behaviour change in Ghana and West Africa’s higher education. Hitherto absent in literature, this doctoral study addresses the lack of gamification research findings from the DE context. Third, the model provides eight theoretical constructs on acceptance, motivation, engagement, and outcomes of gamification, including a six-step practitioners’ guideline for tailoring gamification strategy to motivate HEIs to become more purpose-driven. The contribution of the study has resulted in three peer-reviewed articles, one book chapter and three full conference papers. The candidate has served the Association of Information Systems (AIS) and Gamification Community as the Vice President and Secretary of the Special Interest Group on Game Design and Research (AIS SIGGAME) since November 2019.Item Towards The Development Of Contextually Relevant And Industry-Responsive Graduate Information Systems Curricula For Sub-Saharan Africa.(University Of Ghana, 2023-02) Mark-Oliver, K.The relevance of academic programmes, including information systems (IS), to meeting stakeholder expectations, continues to be a concern for both researchers and practitioners. For example, on one hand, industries expect IS graduates to acquire the relevant competencies needed for organisational performance. This expectation is congruent with governments‘ expectation of graduates acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills that make them employable and also solving national socio-economic challenges. On the other hand, IS academics focus on independent autonomous research and further knowledge that is not necessarily focused on vocation. This, for example, conflicts with government, industry and students‘ expectations of graduates being employed after obtaining degrees. Furthermore, new societal challenges emerging as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, call for disruption-responsive IS curricula. These multiple, and sometimes conflicting expectations, from different actors, constitute an institutional complexity which currently confronts IS curriculum innovation in SSA. IS departments in SSA are expected to navigate this institutional complexity in their efforts to develop or revise contextually relevant and responsive IS curricula. However, empirical evidence and theoretical explanations of how relevant academic programmes in IS respond to the SSA context have not been adequately explored. A review of the information systems curriculum and the institutional complexity literature delineates, among others, four interlinked research gaps, which have also been echoed in practice and somewhat by the global IS body, the Association of Information Systems (AIS). First, there is the need to explore the IS competencies required of mid-level management IS professionals relevant to organisations in SSA. Mid-level IS managers occupy positions between entry-level and the Chief Information Officer (CIO) position. Second, there is the need to explain how institutional logics and agent actions influence IS curriculum innovation in SSA. Third, there is the need to explain the consequences of the influences of institutional logics and agent actions on the responsiveness of IS curricula in SSA. Lastly, there is the need to explore the nature of graduate IS programme offerings in SSA. Consequently, the overarching purpose of this doctoral study is to develop a framework for the development of contextually relevant and industry-responsive graduate information systems curricula for Sub-Saharan Africa. To explore the nature of graduate IS programme offerings and mid-level management IS competencies, the study adopted the MSIS 2016 global IS competency model to guide the collection and analysis of data. Again, the study also adopted the institutional theory, and specifically the institutional logics perspective, to explain the influences of institutional logics and agents‘ actions on the development of IS curricula. The curriculum responsiveness perspective was used to examine the responsiveness of graduate IS curricula in SSA. This study, based on the critical realism paradigm, adopted a mixed-method research approach (Delphi study with 56 experts, a case study and a survey of 200 university websites) because the different research questions required different methods. For the first research objective, this study found that, in SSA, mid-level management IS professionals, play a hybrid of technical and non-technical roles and require individual foundation competencies (IFC), IS-specific competencies and competencies in a domain of practice. In addition, organisations emphasise IFCs more than IS-specific skills for mid-level IS management positions in SSA. IFCs, though difficult to develop through education and training are essential to look out for during hiring. For example, in this study, a trait like ―ability to be flexible and adapt to change‖ which is a lower competency, was identified to be important for mid-level IS managers. Hitherto silent in literature, this study is the first to focus on mid-level management IS competencies, particularly from an SSA and a socio- technical perspective. For the second research objective, this study captured the influence of new institutional logics, such as the development and the de-colonialism logics, at the societal level on graduate IS curriculum innovation in SSA. Previous studies had only identified the state, the market, the corporation, the religion, the community, the family, and the professionalism as enduring institutional logics of western societies that influence social behaviour. The church logic and the decolonisation logic, though existing at the societal and organisational levels respectively, do not influence graduate IS curriculum innovation. In addition, this study captured the academic logic at the field level, the interdisciplinary logic at the organisational level, and the Computer Science and IS logics at the individual level, to influence graduate IS curriculum innovation in SSA. Furthermore, these societal, field, university and individual level institutional logics contradicted each other presenting an institutional complexity to graduate IS curriculum innovation in SSA. However, the IS department resolved conflicting logics through mechanisms such as decoupling practices, faithful appropriation of congruent logics, hybridisation of logics and pursuit of dominant logics. For the third research objective, this study found that: First, graduate IS curricula in SSA are economically responsive by responding to the university's economic needs, and students’ economic needs. Second, graduate IS curricula in SSA are disciplinary responsive by responding to the local and global IS disciplinary identity. Third, graduate IS curricula in SSA are pedagogically responsive by accommodating IS entry experiences and IS learning resources. Fourth, graduate IS curricula in SSA are culturally responsive by accommodating the internal organisational culture and the culture of dependent organisations. Fifth, the technological and disruptive responsiveness are new dimensions uncovered in this study. Graduate IS curricula in SSA are technologically responsive, by accommodating ICT trends and the institutional ICTs and also disruptively responsive by being resilient to emergencies such as global pandemics and disasters and planned changes. For the fourth research objective, the following findings were discovered. First, graduate IS programmes in SSA are hybrid and are focused on providing generalist, domain-driven specialist or technology-driven specialist competencies and are more dominant in public universities than private universities. In addition, graduate IS course offerings provide IS-specific, individual foundational and domain of practice competencies such as business, computing, health, education, public policy, development, geography, government and mining reflecting the immediate local contextual needs in SSA. Prior to this research, there had been the general belief that academic programmes in IS, just like IS developed in the west, carry the values, aspirations, and interests of western societies. There have, therefore, been calls for IS curriculum researchers and practitioners in SSA to focus on ―decolonising‖ IS, and in particular ―Africanise‖ IS curricula, in SSA universities. In response, the study contributes theoretically and empirically to the understanding of graduate IS curriculum innovation in SSA in a number of ways. First, the study, arguably the first, extends the institutional logic perspective to IS curriculum innovation in SSA and uncovered beyond the existing seven institutional orders of western societies, the role of the logics of development and possibly de-colonialism in shaping IS curriculum decisions in SSA. These findings open the need to explore how the development and de-colonialism logics, specific to the SSA region and other developing countries, influence the development, implementation, adoption and use and consequences of information systems. Second, the study also explains how other institutional logics at different levels influence IS curriculum innovation. Such a socio-technical multi-level analysis of IS curriculum innovation is uncommon in extant literature. These contributions, among others, have been published in two book chapters and a conference proceeding.