Print (“Good Luck!”):Measuring the Effect of Autogenerated Social Encouragement on Student Anxiety
Collin Blanchard, Holly Buff, Travis Cook, Raquel Dottle, Gideon Luck, Alani Peters, Virginia Pettit, Isaak Ramirez, and Jessica Wininger Abstract
Requesting and receiving messages of encouragement on social media has previously been shown to significantly reduce test anxiety for students. We present an empirical study to test whether autogenerated messages of encouragement on social media are as effective as those from real people. Our results both confirm and extend previous research by showing that social encouragement can lower anxiety, but knowingly receiving autogenerated encouragement severely diminishes this effect.
Methodology
Results These figures show the state(y axis) and trait(x axis) anxiety of the control(top) and experimental groups(bottom). *The control group were told tweets from humans, and the experimental were told they were from bots.
Research Questions:
*The control group’s anxiety lessened by 13.39%
1. Will it matter whether the messages are autogenerated or from people?
*The experimental group’s by 7.7%.
2. How does the level of student anxiety relate to number of correct answers on the quiz? 3. How do students feel about seeking support from bots or other people prior to a quiz?
In the post assessment most students said they would not seek encouragement via social media again, even those who were helped by it. There was no significant difference between the mean scores for the control (8.48/10) and experimental (8.32/10) groups.
We would like to acknowledge and thank Dr. James Prather for his mentorship on this project as well as ACU for the use of thier facilites and the sponsorship of our sudent SIGCHI club.