Several WAVE lab members recently attended the American Psychological Association’s 2019 Technology, Mind, & Society conference.

On October 3, Dr. Behrend and ten other scientists participated in the first “Technology, Mind, and Society” Advocacy and Lobby Day. The researchers met with staff from the House Science Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. The group also discussed the National AI Strategy with Dr. Lynne Parker, the assistant director for AI at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

WAVE lab members Brad Pitcher and Dave Tomczak presented their research during the conference. Brad’s presentation (on 10/4), “Improving Student Attitudes and Performance in STEM through Virtual Reality and Constructive Feedback” explored the benefits of using virtual reality technologies in educational contexts. Dave’s presentation (on 10/5), “I Didn’t Agree to These Terms: Electronic Performance Monitoring Violates the Psychological Contract” focused on how the practice of electronic performance monitoring can violate workers’ expectations from their organization. See below for more information on their talks.

“Improving Student Attitudes and Performance in STEM through Virtual Reality and Constructive Feedback”

In this study, we explore the effects of learning VR welding in a social learning environment on performance in and attitudes toward welding through social learning theory. We found that individuals within the same group demonstrated a high degree of convergence on two VR welding performance metrics: objective performance and learning strategy. Furthermore, scores on these performance metrics, for individuals within a group, were significantly predicted by the scores of the first welder in the group, indicating the influence of behavioral modeling.

“I Didn’t Agree to These Terms: Electronic Performance Monitoring Violates the Psychological Contract”

Electronic performance monitoring (EPM) is a growing organizational practice, and newer forms of EPM are able to gather more personal employee information than ever before. In this study, we found that individuals perceive EPM as a violation of the psychological contract, and individuals with greater perceptions of job autonomy are more likely to perceive a violation. Individuals who hold negative perceptions of EPM reassert their autonomy by engaging in covert counterproductive work behaviors, such as withholding effort, and this effect holds true for jobs both high and low in complexity.