Christof Imhof

Our research group at the Institute for Research in Open-, Distance- and eLearning (IRODeL) focuses on emotional aspects of reading and learning. Within the scope of my thesis, I’m particularly intrigued by the concept of engagement (in reading and learning) and its links to procrastination. I’d be interested in ascertaining whether engagement, a construct with affective and cognitive/attentional components that can be measured automatically with eye-tracking devices and facial expression analysis software (-> WG3), differs between…

A) traditional and digital media (maybe due to haptic differences -> WG4) and
B) reading and learning activities (perhaps digitally presented texts improve engagement in reading but impair engagement in learning or vice versa).

I would also like to inquire whether procrastination, i.e. behaviour that tends toward postponing the initiation, processing and completion of a task (Tuckman, 2007), is influenced by the device (e.g. book vs. e-reader vs. tablet) used while reading and learning. For instance, readers/learners using tablets might get sidetracked more than ones using other devices due to the multitude of distracting functions and applications readily available, thus facilitating procrastination.

I’m interested in partaking in STSMs related to data collection (e.g. the combination of eye-tracking and facial expression data) and analysis (e.g. with R). I take an interest in participating in Training Schools related to methodological and/or technical aspects of objective measurement techniques (e.g. eye-tracking).