Appreciative inquiry: designing for engagement in technology-mediated learning

Generating and sustaining engagement should be an explicit element of technology- mediated learning (TML) design for adults. Yet, little related guidance exists for practitioners in this field. This thesis investigates design elements that sustain engagement and describes a workshop protocol to help practitioners address engagement in their own context. The protocol and thesis are each framed as an Appreciative Inquiry (AI), a process that seeks to discover and build on what works well in existing systems. An evaluation study of the protocol, conducted at a bank learning centre, confirmed that the protocol is viable; participant designers created several engagement strategies. However, the findings also indicate that engagement was not a priority for participants and suggest that practitioners could benefit from a deeper understanding of engagement design. Finally, the thesis offers engagement design guidelines that advocate using: cognitive conflict, challenge, relevance, goals, experiential learning, interactivity, control, support, collaboration, uninterrupted time and fun.