paper on the emotional well-being of information science students, affected by misinterpretation

8/10/2019 Paper on the emotional well-being of Information Science students, affected by misinterpretation

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WHEN ONLINE AFFECTS THE OFFLINE: THE EFFECT OF

MISINTERPRETATION IN ONLINE CHATS ON THE

EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING OF STUDENTS

Van den Bos, Lars, University of Utrecht, Princetonplein 5, Buys Ballot Gebouw, 3584 CC,Utrecht, The Netherlands, [email protected]

Van den Heuvel, Joey, University of Utrecht, Princetonplein 5, Buys Ballot Gebouw, 3584CC, Utrecht, The Netherlands, [email protected]

Molenaar, Sabine, University of Utrecht, Princetonplein 5, Buys Ballot Gebouw, 3584 CC,Utrecht, The Netherlands, [email protected]

Robeer, Marcel, University of Utrecht, Princetonplein 5, Buys Ballot Gebouw, 3584 CC,

Utrecht, The Netherlands, [email protected]

Abstract

Online chats have grown to become more popular over the past few years and, needless to say, theway they distance themselves from time and place are great, but are there any negative consequences

connected to computer-mediated communication (CMC)? To be more specific, can misinterpretationsin CMC affect the emotional well-being of a person in some way? Previously done research indicated

that social skills and interpretations are important aspects in communication and should be taken intoaccount to uncover the answer to this question. Through the means of an online questionnaire,

information was gathered from 108 Information Sciences students. The analyses of the answers showthat there was a severe lack of females (only seven) in the sample and that other results did not proveto be significant enough to accept the alternative hypotheses. Only negligible correlations between the

variables have been found (at most) and there were no significant differences present. The researchprovides no evidence that misinterpretations in online chats affect the emotional well-being of anindividual.

Keywords: Computer-mediated communication (CMC), Emotional well-being, Misinterpretation,Social skills, Gender, Students.


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1 Introduction

Since the upswing of modern Internet facilities around the world, people have the ability to chat to

each other via a digital medium. The textual form of this chatter is commonly referred to as computer-mediated communication (CMC) (Thurlow, Lengel & Tomic, 2004). The use of CMC has changed theway people interact in various ways. Chatting to one another leads to large conversations that might beinterpreted elsewise, since there are no nonverbal cues involved in CMC (Walther, 1992).Misinterpretation and misperception are terms that clarify the situation, but will not explain why thisoccurs.

With this research project, the impact of misinterpretation in CMC on Information Science studentshas been examined. The research was limited to this sample frame, since misinterpretation is differentbetween all kinds of populations and contexts (Jones, 1995). It is interesting to consider the effects onrelatively young people that use computers relatively often, which leads to interesting data on severalaspects, such as their social skills, emotional well-being and how adept someone is at interpreting a

particular chat in a particular context. The person should, for example, be able to determine the realmeaning of a particular conversation or be sure that the receiver of a joke also conceives this as such.A better view on this aspect would lead to information that gives a more contextualized layer to CMCin terms of testing fellow students. These students are ought to distinguish different and manageinformation flows (Borko 1968), but they should also be capable of doing the same in CMC-information, because they should not be negatively affected by an incorrect interpretation of a chat.Therefore, scientific research has been conducted, literature was consulted, and psychologicalprocesses that are all informative for the scientific process were explained, so that several interestingconclusions can be drawn about this sample.

The research itself is interesting from a societal point of view, because CMC is an integral part of bothpersonal and professional communication (Ku, Chu & Tseng, 2012). Additionally, since there is still a

lot of knowledge to gather about this topic, the study is interesting from a scientific point of view. Theresearch project is based on a research question, and is being accompanied by several literature papersthat support the reasoning that will be conducted throughout the entire paper. This helped tocontextualize and clarify the gathered, unknown statistics of this sample.

The main objective of the research is to determine the effects of misinterpretation on online chatting.The CMC will be studied using students in a one-on-one chat scenario. With this, the followingresearch question was formulated:

Is there misinterpretation among students in one-on-one instant computer-mediated communicationthat has a negative effect on the emotional well-being?

2 Theory

To form a theoretical foundation for the research, various papers that were relevant were studied. Eventhough these papers have a lot to say about various aspects of CMC, misinterpretation and emotionalwell-being, there are differences that make this research still viable to do. Emotional adjustmentsduring chatting have been analyzed by a few researches already, for instance by Zhe & Boucouvalas(2002), where the researches tried to extract emotions from texts by computers. What is missing in thispaper, is that the focus really lies on the emotions in texts themselves, and not on how these are beinginterpreted. This is exactly the gap that this research attempts to fill. The goal of the research, aspreviously stated, is to see what the effects are when these emotions are being misunderstood intextual communication, and what the causes are for these misinterpretations. As a matter of fact, noliterature could be found that is really similar to the topic that was researched.


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There are, in fact, other papers that might be interesting for some aspects of this research, such as thetypes of chat conversations. According to Link & Wagner (2006) three different types of CMC can bedefined: one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many. Moreover, reasons behind the use of emotionsin chats, and reasons behind using texting or chatting in general, instead of just talking are also aspectsthat have been previously researched. Fullwood & Martino (2007) state that the use of emotions(through the use of emoticons, for example) can help participants of a chat to be able to perceive thepersonality and emotions of their chat partner(s). These are all very interesting papers, and they areuseful for this research, but they simply do not cover the principle of misinterpretation, whichtherefore is a unique part of the subject to perform research on. The most relative papers might beVandergriff (2013) and Taesler & Janneck (2010), where the expression of emotion and use ofemoticons and other typographic markers used in chats are analyzed in these papers. Once again, therewas no further elaboration of how these are being interpreted by the one that is supposed to understandthe receiving emotions from the other contact.

In conclusion, the link between misinterpretation, CMC and emotions is a subject that has not beenresearched (enough), which makes this research full of meaning.

3 Hypotheses

This research consists of three abstract constructs: emotional well-being, CommunicationInterpretation Quota (CIQ), and social skills. The only variable in the current research is gender. Theconceptual model (Figure 1) gives a representation of the abstract constructs and the variable, and therelationships between them. The relationships are represented by arrows, meaning that the construct orconcept which is pointing at another construct or concept has an effect on it. In the conceptual model,the dependent variable, explained by the independent variable gender and the mediating variable CIQ,is emotional well-being. The two independent variables, namely social skills and gender, explain astudents CIQ and emotional well-being respectively. The CIQ is explained by social skills and itexplains emotional well-being. Thus, this is a mediating variable. In the following subsections, the

conceptual model and its used terms are elaborated.

Figure 1. Conceptual Model

3.1 Emotional well-being

First of all, emotional well-being is the main abstract construct in the conceptual model. It is theconstruct that is affected by other parts in the conceptual model but does not affect other constructs orvariables by itself. Eventually, this construct is where the key focus in the research lies, and istherefore seen as the main construct in this research.


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Emotional well-being can be described in various ways. It can relate to the quality of someone's life,having aspects like personal well-being, self-esteem, productivity and happiness. A good emotionalwell-being will also reduce chances of stress, disorder and sleeping problems (Fredrickson & Joiner,2002). This concept - since it is an abstract construct - is key in the research for a potential effect ofmisinterpretation in chats on the emotional well-being. This is why all the arrows end up in thisabstract construct in the conceptual model, assuming that gender and the CommunicationInterpretation Quota directly affect the emotional well-being.

To determine a students emotional well-being in the sample, a previously created scale by the WorldHealth Organization: Regional Office for Europe (1998) was used. This scale consists of fivestatements which are used to measure the participants emotional well-being on a scale of 1-100. Thequestions in this scale were implemented within the survey as a key part to gaining insight in theemotional well-being of the student.

3.2 Communication Interpretation Quota (CIQ)

To be able to measure the amount of misinterpretations, a self-constructed abstract construct wasadded, the Communication Interpretation Quota, or CIQ for short. CIQ determines the frequency ofmisinterpretation in small chat conversations that have been created for the research. If there is no caseof misinterpretation, the participants CIQ will increase by one point. The CIQ is then transformed to ascale ranging from zero to one, with one being no misinterpretation at all, and zero meaning that allthe chats were misinterpreted. The right interpretation of a chat is determined by giving four multiplechoice answers, of which only one corresponds with an answer that the sender would (a) findappropriate to not notice that there has been a case of misinterpretation, or (b) think that there has notbeen a misinterpretation at all.

The Conflict Research Consortium (n.d.) suggests that ambiguous messages are likely to bemisinterpreted. People tend to clarify these messages by using their own expectations. Thismisinterpretation can lead to social conflict, which in itself can lead to negative affect (Abbey,

Abramis & Caplan, 1985). Negative affectivity involves the experience of negative emotions and poorself-concept (Watson & Clark, 1984). Even though not all the aspects of this relationships have beenresearched, it shows that there is a possible negative effect of misinterpretation of messages on howpeople perceive their own emotions. It is expected that students who had more cases ofmisinterpretation in the CIQ questions, and therefore a lower CIQ, will have a significantly loweremotional well-being after answering the CIQ questions than before answering them. This leads to thefollowing hypothesis:

H1: A lower CIQ negatively affects the emotional well-being.

3.3 Gender

The variable that affects the emotional well-being is gender. This is a variable that is based on thecharacteristics of an individual, and can be measured precisely. Logically, the variable gender can onlyhave two possible values: male or female. Previous research by Simon (2014) states that females areusually more negative about their own well-being than men. Men report more frequent positive, andless frequent negative feelings than women. Men and women may react differently tomisinterpretation and that is why this aspect needs to be taken into account in this research. This leadsto the second hypothesis:

H2: Men tend to have a higher overall emotional well-being in comparison to females.


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3.4 Social Skills

The last abstract construct is social skills. The social skills of an individual is the ability tocommunicate with other human beings, both verbally and non-verbally, and understanding them

(SkillsYouNeed, n.d.). In short, whether an individual is, or is not, sociable. In the conceptual model,it was expected that social skills affect the CIQ.

A vital part of understanding others, and responding to them, is based on the ability of individuals toeffectively recognize and use nonverbal behavior (Feldman & Rim, 1991). Having developed socialskills will make people able to understand their conversation partner better. Being sensitive to thethoughts and feelings of others is key to successfully establish and maintain social relationships(Pickett, Gardner & Knowles, 2004). Socially skilled people will be better in interpretingconversations correctly, have a better sense for what direction the chat is going in, and are moreskilled in forming appropriate reactions to the conversation partner. Therefore, social skills affect thechances of misinterpreting conversations and, in doing so, affect the CIQ. This induces the third, andfinal, hypothesis:

H3: There is a positive correlation between social skills and CIQ.

4 Method

4.1 Participants

The questionnaire was filled in by 108 students following the course Scientific Research Methods atthe University of Utrecht. In general, students form a suitable and adequate sample for this research.They are not just required to use the computer quite regularly for study-related activities, but a fairamount of young Dutch people also suffer from negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression

(CBS, 2014). The only downside that could be foreseen was the low quantity of female studentsfollowing the course, which also reflected in the actual number of females filling in the questionnaire(N = 7).

4.2 Materials

A questionnaire is a suitable method to answer the research question. Currently, there are some scalesthat already exist, which could be used to determine ones mental condition or state. This wasexpanded with short made-up chats, with some context added to them. Subsequently, the correctinterpretation of said chat (the feelings of both chatters involved, the meaning of the conversations andthe purpose of the conversation) was determined. This was used to see if the students in the samplewere able to interpret the chats correctly, or in other words, if there was a case of misinterpretation.Furthermore, the questionnaire was an easy way to reach a lot of students, while making sure they gotthe exact same questions. As a consequence, the differences in the answers were dependent on theindividual itself, and not due to the way the questions were asked.

The questions that were devised for the questionnaire have been categorized, and the answers to thesequestions were related to a specific part of the research (the entire questionnaire can be found in theAppendix A). All questions belong to a variable or abstract construct present in the conceptual model.Putting aside the general questions, the first question that truly mattered to the research was questiontwo, determining the gender. Questions three through seven and 21 through 25 have been used toascertain the emotional well-being of the participants in the sample. Subsequently, questions eightthrough 12 gave insight in a participants social skills, and to conclude, the remaining questions(questions 13 through 20) determined the CIQ of a participant. There was a grand total of 25

questions. Since the hypotheses were based on the conceptual model, the answers to the questions in


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the questionnaire provided enough information for conclusions and determination of whether thealternative hypotheses should be accepted or rejected. A further elaboration on the questions can befound below. The questions will be described in order of appearance.

First of all, to measure the variable gender, a binary scale question was asked; simply What is your

sex?. The percentages of these amounts were calculated by dividing the amount of males by thesample size, the same was done for females.

Secondly, a participants social skills were measured by asking them to determine how well fivestatements about their social skills fitted to themselves. The social skills scale had to be accuratelymeasuring social skills and it should consist of fewer than seven questions. Since none of the socialskills scales could be found that met these requirements, a self-constructed scale was added. This scaleconsists of one Likert scale for each of five statements that are closely related to social skills. Hall(1979) divided social skills into two broad classes of sending and receiving. Riggio (1986) expandsthis by subdividing social skills into basic dimensions, which involve skill in sending, receiving andcontrolling information. Since the participants answering the questionnaire were taking the role of thereceiver, the five statements also focused on assessing the receiver class of social skills. Furthermore,

the National Research Council (2010) states that social skills means having skills in interpreting verbaland nonverbal information to respond appropriately. According to the National Research Council,social skills are equal to complex communication. By adding this information to the scale, thestatements were used to determine someones social skill by rating the awareness of reasons behindcommunication, awareness of peoples means and intentions through chat, phone and real lifeconversations. In other words, if the participants viewed themselves as being successful in the receiverrole of both verbal and nonverbal complex communication. The scores were then added up, creatingone total score for each individual. The total score was used for the hypotheses testing. This scale,consisting of five items, was found to be reliable ( = .839).

Thirdly, to measure the abstract construct emotional well-being, five seven-point Likert scales wereused for the statements that relate to emotional well-being. Questions that measure the emotional well-being were filled in before and after the test with the chat examples in the questionnaire. The scores ofthe individuals were then applied to a previously created scale devised by the World HealthOrganization: Regional Office for Europe (1998). This is a scale that could measure someonesemotional well-being with a limited amount of statements. The scores of the five questions were thenadded up, and transformed into values ranging from zero to 100, as was also done by the World HealthOrganization.

The emotional well-being of a participant was determined twice in the questionnaire. This was done toappropriately form an answer to the first hypothesis. To properly answer the first hypothesis, not theeffect of the CIQ on the overall emotional well-being is interesting, but whether the emotional well-being was negatively affected after there were potential cases of misinterpretation. For hypothesis one,it was expected that more misinterpretations correlate with a bigger negative influence on emotionalwell-being, and thus with a bigger negative difference between the emotional well-being after the

questions concerning misinterpretation and the questions before that. Both of the times that the scalewas used in the questionnaire, it was found that the five items forming the scale were internally consistaccording to Cronbachs alpha, with alpha scores of .771 and .761 respectively.

Finally, the CIQ score was measured over eight multiple choice questions with one correct answereach, meaning that the other multiple choice answers were false. The participants were informed of thechat environment for every single chat, by adding a general context of the chat followed by a part ofthe conversation up to the point the participant had to form an answer. In the context, information suchas the nature of the chat, a comprehensive description of the conversation partner, and the time of daythe chat takes place were given to the participant. By providing this context and the chat itself, theparticipant should be sufficiently informed to choose the correct reply to the chat, in order to avoidmisinterpretation.


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After gathering data from the questionnaire, the CIQ score was calculated by undertaking multiplesteps. Firstly, the given answers per question were compared to the correct answer as determinedbeforehand. The correct answers to the CIQ questions are marked by the bold-type text in thequestions themselves (13 20) in Appendix A. Correct answers were given one point, incorrectanswers were given zero points. Secondly, the total of the score of an individual was calculated.Finally, this was then divided by eight (due to the presence of eight chat examples). This resulted inscores varying from zero to one. The scale was eventually used to test hypotheses about where one ofthe two variables was the CIQ score.No internal consistency reliability, tested by Cronbachs alpha,was calculated for the CIQ questions, because it is only an indicator if the both chat partners areinterpreting the chat in the same way. As aforementioned, the CIQ is merely an indicator for thefrequency of misinterpretations by a student in the eight chats combined. None of these eight questionsare meant to be interrelated, and therefore no internal correlations were expected to be present.

4.3 Procedure

The questionnaire started by generally informing the students about the research and the questionnaire,

itself. This was done in form of a general story about and behind this research and the questionnaire.On purpose, the word misinterpretation in the title was changed into interpretation. This was doneto ensure that participants would fill in the CIQ questions in the questionnaire according to their ownthought, instead of actively searching for an obscure answer. The actual content started off with ageneral theoretical basis about misperception and misinterpretation in computer-mediatedcommunication, to give the participants an idea of what the questionnaire is about. Secondly, theparticipants were shown gave a short introduction about the abstract construct emotional well-being,and related that to the research. The participants were then shown the research question for some extrainformation. Thirdly, the participants were given a short overview of how the components of thequestionnaire were ordered and what kind of questions could be expected. Finally, the introductionended by giving a time indication to fill in the questionnaire (five to ten minutes) and thanking theparticipants in advance. The actual introduction given to the students can be found in Appendix A.

The participants who filled in the questionnaire were not treated any differently across certainconditions. Male or female, and which team the participant was from, did not make any difference inthe way participants had to fill in the questionnaire.

After finishing the questionnaire, the participants were thanked for filling in the survey, therebyinforming the participants the questionnaire was done.

5 Results

Data from one participant were dropped because the data was found to be corrupt.

The first hypothesis, A higher recognition of CIQs in chats leads to a higher emotional well-being,was tested using a Pearsons correlation test. For the test, the Communication Interpretation Quota ofstudents (M = .36, SD = .14) were compared to the difference in their score of emotional well-beingbefore and after the CIQ questions (M = -1.14, SD = 9.60). Analysis showed an insignificant andnegligible negative correlation, r(107) = -.12,p = .103, one-tailed.

Hypothesis two, which states that men tend to have a higher overall emotional well-being incomparison to females, was tested using the independent sample T-test. In this case, the differencesbetween gender in their emotional well-being, both before and after, were tested. The low number offemale students (N = 7), compared to the number of male students (N = 101) that filled in the study,means that no conclusions based on gender can be drawn from this data. Analysis showed nosignificant difference between males (M= .58, SD= .14) and females (M= .60, SD= .11) on theemotional well-being measured before the CIQ-test, t(106) = -.31,p = .381, one-tailed. Additionally,


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analysis also did not show a significant difference between males (M= .57, SD= .14) and females (M= .56, SD= .11) in their emotional well-being (after), t(106) = .22,p = .413, one-tailed.

Figure 2. Scatter plot for the correlation of a students Communication Interpretation Quotaand their social skills

For the third hypothesis, the correlation between a students social skills and their CIQ was measuredusing Pearsons correlation. As can be seen in Figure 2, the spread of the dots on the scatter plotprovide no clear linear trend between the two variables. Even though there seems to be a positiveassociation with constant scatter, this relationship is too weak to show any clear relationship. The

coefficient of determination (R2

) confirms this, with only 1.6% common variance between the twovariables. The lack of a correlation as suggested in the scatter plot is also shown in Pearsonscorrelation test, where no significant correlation was found between social skills (M = 28.22, SD =4.16) and Communication Interpretation Quota (M = .36, SD = .14), r(107) = .13,p = .098, one-tailed.

6 Conclusion

In an effort to find a negative effect of misinterpretation on the emotional well-being of students inone-on-one computer mediated communications, data gathered from a self-constructed questionnaire,filled in by 108 students following the course Scientific Research Methods, were collected. A fewconclusions can be drawn in relation to the alternative hypotheses, based on the gathered data. Results

from the questionnaire regarding the first alternative hypothesis, H1 A lower CIQ negatively affects


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the emotional well-being, produced no statistically significant correlation. Abbey, Ambramis &Caplan (1985) implied that misinterpretation could lead to negative affect. This negative affectinvolves negative emotion and poor self-concept (Watson & Clark, 1984). Hence, a significantnegative correlation was expected between the CIQ and the difference in emotional well-being. Eventhough the correlation was not significant, it demonstrated a negative correlation.

The questionnaire displayed no evidence that the second alternative hypothesis, H2 Men tend to havea higher overall emotional well-being in comparison to females, is true. Results were inconclusive,due to the lack of females in the sample. Therefore, this null hypothesis cannot be disproven and thealternative hypothesis that has been devised should not be accepted. This conclusion is not in line withprevious research, because Simon (2014) suggested that men are generally more positive about theirown emotional well-being than women.

Likewise, the results revealed no indication that higher social skills lead to a higher CIQ.Consequently, the last alternative hypothesis, There is a positive correlation between social skills andCIQ, should also be rejected. The only evidence that was found regarding this aspect of thequestionnaire is that there might be an extremely weak positive correlation between social skills and

CIQ, which should be neglected altogether. The absence of a significant correlation is in disagreementwith Pickett, Gardner and Knowles (2004). They see being sensitive to thoughts and feelings as key tosocial skills.

To conclude, misinterpretation among students in one-on-one computer-mediated communication doesnot have a negative effect on the emotional well-being of said students. According to the theorydescribed earlier, online chats can have a certain emotional weight to them and can be interpretedincorrectly. Apparently though, no evidence has been found in this research to prove that thismisinterpretation does in fact negatively affect the emotional well-being.

7 Discussion

There are several limitations to this research that have a potential effect on either the quality of thefindings, or the ability to effectively answer the hypotheses. Firstly, there was a lack of show-upfemales in the sample. The sample size contained 108 participants, of which only 6.48% were women.Even though the difference between genders may be present in the general population, the differencebetween the two genders in this sample had to be very large to be statistically significant.

Additionally, this gender problem is part of the second limitation in the research. The sample thatfilled in the questionnaire is difficult to generalize. This difficulty has two main reasons. First andforemost, because the actual percentage of females in universities in the Netherlands is 52% (CBS,2012), compared to the 6.48% females in the sample. Secondly, because it is questionable ifInformation Sciences students are a homogeneous representation of the overall student population.

The third limitation of the research became evident in the two self-constructed abstract constructs.

Although the first of these two, social skills, exhibited a high internal consistency reliability, thestatements making up social skills rest on a frequency of time. This frequency of time was distributedover seven possible Likert scale answers, ranging from none of the time to all of time, that could beinterpreted differently by each individual. This different interpretation of frequencies could mean thatthe answers on this Likert scale are incomparable. Two participants intending to give the samefrequency of time could choose two different Likert scale answers, and likewise, two participantschoosing the same answer could have a different frequency of time in mind.

Besides social skills, there were several problems encountered with the Communication InterpretationQuota, the second self-constructed abstract construct. Firstly, students were not given an indicatorwhether the chosen answer lead to misinterpretation or not, which could explain the lack of asignificant effect on the emotional well-being. As was apparent in the theory, the emotional well-being

of a person is only affected if there is a known misinterpretation between both conversation partners.


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Not giving an indication of the occurrence of this misinterpretation made a theoretical effect on apersons emotions improbable. Secondly, since the answers to the CIQ questions were limited tomultiple choice, students could not form their own reaction to the chat, as is done in a realconversation. This imposes a potential misinterpretation of the four given answers students couldchoose from. Even though one of the four answers is the correct answer that is expected by the sender,and is therefore the answer that is correct to avoid misinterpretation, it does not mean that the receivercould not have formed an answer that would keep up the conversation, without the sender evenknowing that his sent message was misinterpreted. For instance, chats could change topics, orreactions themselves could be ambiguous. This shows that for the creation of a new abstract construct,a whole process is needed to ensure that it is both reliable and valid in all possible ways. For example,it is currently unknown if the CIQ gives a good indication of misinterpretation. Unfortunately, sincethe main focus of the research was on providing an answer to the main question, there was no room forforming good and solid abstract constructs.

Finally, the method chosen to gather data for the hypothesis, a questionnaire, posed four mainproblems itself. Firstly, by establishing an individuals emotional well-being within just one survey,the timespan between the two measurements was really short. Chat sessions themselves could even

outlast the length of the survey. Even though a students emotional well-being might be negativelyaffected by misinterpretation, no indications were found for when this would occur. This might bedirectly after the chat, or there might be a delay before this takes place. Secondly, the usage of Likertscales in the questionnaire introduced a central tendency bias. Students filling in the questionnaire tendto avoid the most extreme answers, such as I feel no commitment at all in the emotional well-beingquestions, because the occurrence of these is very scarce in the minds perception. Thirdly, in a surveypeople have to review themselves, which adds a social desirability bias. There is a possibility thatstudents will put themselves in the best possible light, instead of giving an objective answer. Lastly,the multiple choice questions to measure ones CIQ are subject to the probability of guessing a correctanswer.

Future research should ensure that the two newly introduced abstract constructs are highly reliable and

valid. Especially, it should form a good abstract construct for measuring misinterpretation in chats.Furthermore, future research should focus on experimental research to minimize potential effects ofbias, control extraneous variables, and compensate the shortcomings the questionnaire brings along.


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World Health Organization: Regional Office for Europe. (1998). Wellbeing measures in primaryhealth care: The DepCare Project.Paper presented at the Consensus meeting, Stockholm, Sweden.


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Zhe, X., & Boucouvalas, A. C. (2002). Text-to-emotion engine for real time internet communication.Proceedings of International Symposium on Communication Systems, Networks and DSPs, 164-168.


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Appendix A: Questionnaire

The interpretation of online chats

Since the upswing of modern internet facilities around the world, people have the ability to chat toeach other via a digital medium. The textual form of this chatter is commonly referred to as computer-mediated communication (CMC) (Thurlow, Lengel & Tomic, 2004). The use of CMC has changed theway people interact in various ways. Chatting to one another leads to large conversations, that mightbe interpreted elsewise, since there are no nonverbal cues involved in CMC (Walther, 1992).Misinterpretation and misperception are terms that clarify the situation, but will not explain why thisoccurs.

With this survey, we will be trying to identify the consequences of misinterpretation on the emotional

well-being. Emotional well-being is your ability to understand the value of your emotions and usethem to move your life forward in positive directions. Therefore is the examination of fluctuations inemotional well-being a substantial part of our research. We will be trying to get an answer on the realeffects of misinterpretations and answer our research question:

Is there misinterpretation among students in one-on-one instant computer-mediatedcommunication that has a negative effect on the emotional well-being?

In this survey we will be asking some general questions first, such as team allocation and sex.Afterwards we will be asking a few questions about your social skills and emotional well-being at themoment you are filling in this survey.

With this general information we will compare the scores you make on our made online chats. It willbe your task to choose an answer that fits the a chat situation most correctly to your opinion.

Finally, we will ask some five questions about your life experiences.

All information will be repeated when necessary.

The survey will take about 5 - 10 minutes to fill in.

We thank you in advance for filling in our survey,

Joey van den HeuvelMarcel Robeer

Sabine MolenaarLars van den Bos


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Questions

1. What team do you attend at the workshops of Scientific Research Methods?

If you have not been allocated to a team, please select none.

Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 Team 5 Team 6 Team 7




Team 30 Team 31 Team 32 None

2.What is your sex?

Male Female

3-7.Please fill in what answer fits you the most.

At notime

Some ofthe time

Less thanhalf of thetime

Half ofthe time

More thanhalf of thetime

Most ofthe time

All ofthe time

3. I have felt cheerful and Ihave been in good spirits

4. I have felt calm and relaxed

5. I have felt active and

vigorous

6. I woke up feeling refreshedand rested.

7. My daily life has been filledwith things that interest me


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8-12.Please fill in what answer fits you the most.

I feel nocommitmentat all

I really don'tfeel muchcommitment

I don't feelverycommitted to

that

Neutral

I canrelate tothat a

bit

I canrelate tothat

pretty

well

Thatreallysounds

like me

8. I'm aware of peoples

reasons to communicatewhen communicating.

9. I'm well aware ofwhat people mean inreal conversations.

10. I'm well aware ofwhat people mean intelephone conversations.

11. I'm well aware of

what people mean inchat conversations.

12. I understandsomething after it's beenexplained one singletime.

Now, we will providing you 7 chats. In these chats you're playing a role of one of the two people who are

chatting to each other. In front of each chat you can see the context-situation about what you already knowabout the other person.

In the end of each chat, is a gap provided, whereat a response to the other chatter can be filled in. We haveprovided 4 possible answers that could fit the gap. It is your task to determine which sentence or word fits the

situation the best.

13.Please fill in the best answer to fit the gap.

Context: Richard has been your best friend for years. He loves to joke around and you two rarely fight. Richardcan be a little impulsive and rough though, but youve learned to see past that. Time of conversation 22:57-23:01

You: Richard, did you finish the exercises for math yet?Richard: Yes, didnt you?You: No, I couldnt understand half of it.Richard: Jesus Christ, are you truly that stupid?You: ______

A: Im not stupid!

B: Youre an asshole.

C: Very funny, just help me out.

D: Have fun with your math skills, bye.


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Context: You and David have been friends since high school. Ever since you two met, David has been givingyou lectures on 24Kitchen, which he tries to watch 24/7; he is a big fan and loves to cook. Time of conversation17:29-17:32

You: Hey, David!David: Hey there.You: How have you been?David: Not so great actually, and you?You: Im fine, but whats wrong?David: I dropped the bass.You: ______

A: Thats aterrible joke.

B: Is it unusable now?

C: Pick it up then.

D: Are you listening to Nicky Minaj or something?


Context: Lindsay is your best friend, she is very nice, but she has a negative side; shes a big fan of snarkycomments. Youve learned to live with it, so you two never fight over it when she does that. Time of

conversation 15:43-15:49

Lindsay: I left my keys on the kitchen counter!You: You cant get in the house?Lindsay: No, I locked myself outside.You: So you will have to stay out then?Lindsay: No, Im going to throw a brick through a window and climb in.You: ______

A: Wont your parents get mad?

B: Id use a club or bat or something if I were you.

C: Dont hurt yourself!

D: I was just making conversation.


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Context:This conversation is between 17-year old teenagers Kayleigh and you. You have been knowing each other for 3years and frequently hang out together. You are talking about daily occurrences and Kayleigh has seen someremarkable things lately, which, of course, should be told to you. You know that Kayleighs family is very afraid

of surgical operations and their whole family has a normal cup size. Time of conversation: 14:53 - 14:56.

Kayleigh: Dudette, that is sooo awesome :3!You: I know right! My mom has been hilarious all day and she

should faint for such a job!Kayleigh: How much do you get paid an hour?You: About 39$ an hour.Kayleigh: No way.You: How have you been doing lately?Kayleigh: Yesterday I went to the plastic surgery with my mom!Kayleigh: And today, I saw the most fattest titties!You: ______

A: Did you do your own?

B: Whose titties?

C: Titties?

D: Did your mom do a boobjob?


Context: This conversation is between a 39 year old researcher K. Jokomoto and you. You two have beendiscussing about a research paper that should be written about obese people in Japan. The size of the group is themain point of the discussion in this chat. You know that K. Jokomoto has already written his hypotheses and hasa good career in writing research papers. Time of conversation: 9:399:42.

K. Jokomoto: This research paper is going to be great!

I have just made my hypotheses.You: Good work mate. Hope you will amaze the audience

with your life changing experiment.K. Jokomoto: Of course it will. But some literary sources have

been lacking currently. I hope I will find it soonYou: I hope so too.K. Jokomoto: Although, I am having problems with declaring the

size of obese people. I guess a larger test-group is a must.You: ______

A: Yes, the larger the better.

B: Feeding them with more fattening products would be a solution.

C: You should be seeking at hospitals for that issue.D: Not really, if you use your statistic failure error correctly, a decent judgment can be made.


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Context: The conversation is between you and a female colleague. Anna loves all kinds of animals, and herfemale friend, Laura, has just gotten a cat. Anna is telling you about her friends new cat. Time of conversation:

11:55 - 12:04.

Anna: My friend just got the cutest cat!You: What color is it?Anna: It is so cute, with its grey fur and blue eyes


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Context: This situation is about a 19 year old guy, Mark, flirting with the 18 year old girl he likes, named Cita(you). They met each other in a club, where they kissed and danced with each at night. The conversation statesfrom 9:34 - 9:40

Cita: Goodmorning:):)Mark: Morning gorgeous!Mark: I dreamed about you :o..Cita: Tell me more!Mark: I only remember you came to sleep over here...Cita: _____

A: Ahhpyjama party like when I was a little kid!!!

B: Oh we were naughty hmm:)?

C: I'm actually really tired right and I want to go back to bed.

D: Can't imagine that. I really like my own bed.

To finalize this survey, please fill in these last questions about your life experiences.

21-25.Please fill in what answer fits you at each statement.

At notime

Some ofthe time

Less thanhalf of thetime

Half ofthe time

More thanhalf of thetime

Most ofthe time

All ofthe time

21. I have felt vividly and I havebeen in a good mood

22. I have feltharmonious

23. I have felt busy and dynamic

in my life24. I felt refreshed and energic inthe first minutes of the morning

25. I have done things in my lifethat excite me.

We would like to thank you for filling in our survey.Yours as Team B15,

Joey van den HeuvelMarcel RobeerSabine Molenaar

Lars van den Bos


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Appendix B: SPSS output

Descriptive measures

Gender

Statistics

What is your sex?

N Valid 108

Missing 0

Mode 0

Range 1Minimum 0

Maximum 1

What is your sex?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid Male 101 93,5 93,5 93,5

Female 7 6,5 6,5 100,0

Total 108 100,0 100,0

Emotional well-being

Before

Statistics

Emotional well-being(before)

N Valid 108

Missing 0

Mean 58,00

Median 60,00

Std. Deviation 14,035

Range 75

Minimum 15

Maximum 90


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Emotional well-being (before)


Cumulative

Percent

Valid 15 1 ,9 ,9 ,924 3 2,8 2,8 3,7

30 1 ,9 ,9 4,6

36 5 4,6 4,6 9,3

39 2 1,9 1,9 11,1

42 4 3,7 3,7 14,8

45 5 4,6 4,6 19,4

48 8 7,4 7,4 26,9

51 8 7,4 7,4 34,3

54 7 6,5 6,5 40,757 6 5,6 5,6 46,3

60 6 5,6 5,6 51,9

63 10 9,3 9,3 61,1

66 10 9,3 9,3 70,4

69 10 9,3 9,3 79,6

72 11 10,2 10,2 89,8

75 7 6,5 6,5 96,3

78 2 1,9 1,9 98,1

81 1 ,9 ,9 99,1

90 1 ,9 ,9 100,0

Total 108 100,0 100,0

After

Statistics

Emotional well-being (after)

N Valid 108

Missing 0

Mean 56,86

Median 57,00


Range 81

Minimum 9

Maximum 90


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Cumulative

Percent

Valid 9 1 ,9 ,9 ,9

21 1 ,9 ,9 1,9

24 1 ,9 ,9 2,8

33 2 1,9 1,9 4,6

36 5 4,6 4,6 9,3

39 2 1,9 1,9 11,1

42 5 4,6 4,6 15,7

45 7 6,5 6,5 22,2

48 6 5,6 5,6 27,8

51 12 11,1 11,1 38,9

54 8 7,4 7,4 46,3

57 7 6,5 6,5 52,8

60 10 9,3 9,3 62,0

63 7 6,5 6,5 68,5

66 6 5,6 5,6 74,1

69 7 6,5 6,5 80,6

72 8 7,4 7,4 88,075 9 8,3 8,3 96,3

78 1 ,9 ,9 97,2

81 1 ,9 ,9 98,1

87 1 ,9 ,9 99,1

90 1 ,9 ,9 100,0

Total 108 100,0 100,0


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Difference between before and after

Statistics

Difference between emotionalwell-being before and after

N Valid 108

Missing 0

Mean -1,14

Std. Error of Mean ,924

Median ,00

Mode 0


Variance 92,139

Minimum -30

Maximum 27

Percentiles 25 -6,00

50 ,00

75 3,00


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Difference between emotional well-being before and after


Cumulative

Percent

Valid -30 1 ,9 ,9 ,9

-27 1 ,9 ,9 1,9

-21 1 ,9 ,9 2,8

-18 3 2,8 2,8 5,6

-15 4 3,7 3,7 9,3

-12 5 4,6 4,6 13,9

-9 8 7,4 7,4 21,3

-6 12 11,1 11,1 32,4

-3 15 13,9 13,9 46,30 22 20,4 20,4 66,7

3 11 10,2 10,2 76,9

6 6 5,6 5,6 82,4

9 9 8,3 8,3 90,7

12 4 3,7 3,7 94,4

15 1 ,9 ,9 95,4

18 3 2,8 2,8 98,1

24 1 ,9 ,9 99,1

27 1 ,9 ,9 100,0Total 108 100,0 100,0

Social skills

Statistics

Social skills

N Valid 108

Missing 0

Mean 28,22

Median 29,00


Range 26

Minimum 9

Maximum 35


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Social skills


Cumulative

Percent

Valid 9 1 ,9 ,9 ,9

11 1 ,9 ,9 1,9

17 1 ,9 ,9 2,8

20 2 1,9 1,9 4,6

22 4 3,7 3,7 8,3

23 2 1,9 1,9 10,2

24 3 2,8 2,8 13,0

25 4 3,7 3,7 16,7

26 8 7,4 7,4 24,1

27 9 8,3 8,3 32,4

28 10 9,3 9,3 41,7

29 15 13,9 13,9 55,6

30 24 22,2 22,2 77,8

31 10 9,3 9,3 87,0

32 4 3,7 3,7 90,7

33 2 1,9 1,9 92,6

34 5 4,6 4,6 97,235 3 2,8 2,8 100,0

Total 108 100,0 100,0

Communication Interpretation Quota (CIQ)

Statistics

Overall CommunicationInterpretation Quota (CIQ)

N Valid 107

Missing 1

Mean ,35514

Median ,37500

Std. Deviation ,141744

Range ,875

Minimum ,000

Maximum ,875


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Overall Communication Interpretation Quota (CIQ)

Frequency Percent Valid PercentCumulative

Percent

Valid ,000 1 ,9 ,9 ,9

,125 7 6,5 6,5 7,5

,250 37 34,3 34,6 42,1

,375 35 32,4 32,7 74,8

,500 20 18,5 18,7 93,5

,625 5 4,6 4,7 98,1

,750 1 ,9 ,9 99,1

,875 1 ,9 ,9 100,0

Total 107 99,1 100,0

Missing System 1 ,9

Total 108 100,0

Question nr. Correct answer Wrong Correct Total

13 C 15 93 108

14 B 82 26 108

15 D 99 9 108

16 C 90 18 108

17 C 92 16 108

18 D 80 28 108

19 B 64 43 107

20 B 32 76 108


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Reliability (Cronbachs alpha)

Emotional well-being (before)

The scale used to measure emotional well-being (before) has a Cronbachs alpha higher than.7 and is therefore reliable. The Cronbachs alpha cannot be increased by deleting one of the

items.

Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's

Alpha N of Items

,771 5

Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean if

Item Deleted

Scale

Variance if

Item Deleted

Corrected

Item-Total

Correlation

Cronbach's

Alpha if Item

Deleted

I have felt cheerful and

I have been in good

spirits

19,08 14,750 ,618 ,706

I have felt calm and

relaxed.

19,26 15,203 ,530 ,734

I have felt active and

vigorous.

19,48 13,803 ,677 ,682

I woke up feeling

refreshed and rested.

20,27 13,563 ,509 ,751

My daily life has been

filled with things that

interest me.

19,24 16,727 ,414 ,769


28/36


The scale used to measure emotional well-being (after) has a Cronbachs alpha higher than .7and is therefore reliable. By deleting one item (I felt refreshed and energetic in the first

minutes of the morning), Cronbachs alpha can be increased. However, we retain the samescale, since using the same skills for before and after will be better for the comparison of bothscales.


Cronbach's

Alpha N of Items

,761 5


Scale Mean if

Item Deleted

Scale

Variance if

Item Deleted

Corrected

Item-Total

Correlation

Cronbach's

Alpha if Item

Deleted

I have felt vividly and I

have been in a good

mood.

18,83 15,318 ,666 ,681

I have felt harmonious. 19,02 14,000 ,717 ,653

I have felt busy anddynamic in my life.

18,76 16,577 ,435 ,748

I felt refreshed and

energetic in the first

minutes of the morning.

20,17 13,822 ,410 ,790

I have done things in

my life that excite me.

19,04 15,550 ,533 ,717


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Social skills

The scale used to measure social skills has a Cronbachs alpha higher than .7 and is thereforereliable. None of the items, when deleted, can increase the Cronbachs alpha.


Cronbach's

Alpha N of Items

,839 5


Scale Mean if

Item Deleted

ScaleVariance if

Item Deleted

CorrectedItem-Total

Correlation

Cronbach'sAlpha if Item

Deleted

I'm well aware of

people's reasons to

communicate when

communicating.

22,64 11,242 ,651 ,804

I'm well aware of what

people mean in real

conversations.

22,25 11,834 ,744 ,785


people mean in

telephone

conversations.

22,54 11,971 ,716 ,792


people mean in chat

conversations.

22,95 10,680 ,617 ,819

I understand something

after it's been explained

one single time.

22,51 11,972 ,543 ,834


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Hypotheses testing

H1: A lower CIQ negatively affects the emotional well-being

For this hypothesis, the Pearson correlation between CIQ and the difference in emotional

well-being (before and after) was tested using an = .05. The correlation between the two canbe neglected, with r(107) = -.12,p = .103, one-tailed.

Descriptive Statistics

Mean

Std.

Deviation N

Overall Communication

Interpretation Quota

(CIQ)

,35514 ,141744 107

Difference between

emotional well-being

before and after

-1,14 9,599 108

Correlations

Overall

Communicati

on

Interpretation

Quota (CIQ)

Difference

between

emotional

well-being

before and

after



(CIQ)

Pearson Correlation 1 -,123

Sig. (1-tailed) ,103

N 107 107

Difference between

emotional well-being

before and after

Pearson Correlation -,123 1


N 107 108


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H2: Men tend to have a higher overall emotional well-being in comparison to females

The number of females (N = 7) is too low to draw any conclusions from for this hypothesis.The t-test is taken at an = .05 level. Looking at the second table, when the significance ofLevenes Test is above .05, the top row will be used to draw conclusions from. Since this isthe case for both emotional well-being before, as well as after, the top rows are used for eachof the variables. The p-values are then divided by two, to form a one-tailed test (p = .381 and

p = .413 respectively). However, as aforementioned, none of this data is useful, since thenumber of females who filled in the questionnaire is too low.

Group Statistics

What is your sex? N Mean

Std.

Deviation

Std. Error

MeanEmotional well-being

(before)

Male 101 ,578911 ,1427789 ,0142070

Female 7 ,595714 ,1059650 ,0400510

Emotional well-being

(after)

Male 101 ,569406 ,1437485 ,0143035

Female 7 ,557143 ,1079682 ,0408082


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Independent Samples Test

Levene's

Test for

Equality of

Variances t-test for Equality of Means

F Sig. t df

Sig.

(2-

tailed)

Mean

Difference

Std. Error

Difference

95% Confidence

Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

Emotional

well-

being

(before)

Equal

variances

assumed

,778 ,380 -

,305

106 ,761 -,0168034 ,0550901 -

,1260248

,0924181

Equal

variances

not

assumed

-

,395

7,598 ,703 -,0168034 ,0424961 -

,1157102

,0821034

Emotional

well-

being

(after)

Equal

variances

assumed

1,121 ,292 ,221 106 ,826 ,0122631 ,0554857 -

,0977427

,1222689

Equal

variances

not

assumed

,284 7,558 ,784 ,0122631 ,0432423 -

,0884782

,1130043


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H3: There is a positive correlation between social skills and CIQ

This hypothesis was also tested at an = .05 level. A Pearson correlation test was used todetermine the correlation between both variables. In the second table, the correlation between

the two variables can be found to be r(107) = .13, with ap = .098, one-tailed.

Descriptive Statistics

Mean

Std.

Deviation N

Social skills 28,22 4,163 108

Communication


(CIQ)

,35514 ,141744 107

Correlations

Social skills

Overall

Communicati

on

Interpretation

Quota (CIQ)

Social skills Pearson Correlation 1 ,126

Sig. (1-tailed) ,098N 108 107



(CIQ)

Pearson Correlation ,126 1


N 107 107


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Appendix C: Improvements and corrections

H1 is now tested using Pearsons correlation.

All hypotheses that suggest a direction are tested one-tailed. The reason for conducting the research is clearer in the Introduction section.

An answer to the main question is given in the conclusion.

For each hypothesis conclusion, the accordance with theory and implications are clearer.

Correct answers for the CIQ questions are provided (Appendix A).

Discussion is improved and expanded.

The first alternative hypothesis (H1) is rewritten to reflect the actual research more clearly.

Abstract constructs are now explained more clearly, including why and how they were tested in thisway.

Paragraphs taking a detour from the main story have been removed.

Overall, the story throughout the paper is made more consistent.

The conceptual model is explained, including a report on the independent and dependent variables. Two sources that were lost since the removal of text read before making the paper (Deliverable 4)

were re-added.

The title has been changed to a more appropriate reflection of the actual research.


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Appendix D: Research project evaluation

Lars van den Bos

In this research Ive learned a lot and I had great pleasure working with my group. The collaborationand communication went very well in my opinion. We had a weekly schedule made, so that we had agood overview of our work and what the status was of it. This way we mostly had the deliverablecontent done in time, so that we could all do a check on the paper (on spelling, inconsistencies etc)before delivering it. Working this way lead us to being on time with finishing the deliverable for eachweeks deadline. Our ways of working also prevented possible stressing for deadlines and securedquality of our work.

Mostly I was focused on doing the writing and theoretical parts, like our conceptual model. Thestatistic tasks that had to be done were not really one of my qualities, so Im really glad I could work

on the writing parts instead of the statistics (in SPSS).

Joey van den Heuvel

During the 10 weeks of Scientific Research Methods we have worked efficiently and hard on alldifferent aspects of the research paper that delivered us a paper where we can be proud of. Thisprocess went, in my opinion, smoothly and thus with no complications. Everyone had his own taskassigned and delivered a well written piece or statistics calculations that could immediately be used inthe paper to write a consistent and good-understandable paper. The crew of this course provided usefulinformation and examined some lacks in our paper that we changed afterwards.

My share in the project is to coordinate the activities and write certain parts of the research paper. I

also assisted and examined others work, to find any inconsistencies in certain parts. All in all, I haveenjoyed the project and it was very interesting to conduct scientific research.

Sabine Molenaar

The collaboration went very smoothly. We never had any trouble working together, if you ask me.Everyone in the group did the work that was assigned to them, we helped each other when help wasneeded and no one complained. Everything was handed in on time and without too much stress. I thinkwe can be quite proud of the amount of work we have completed and what we have accomplished.

The only big mistake we made was during the very first week of this project. We (ironically enough)misinterpreted the assignment for the first deliverable, which lead to the deliverable being incomplete.

Besides, the overall score of bad on said deliverable was obviously below our personal standards.Sometimes the assignments for the week came across as a bit vague, so we were not alwaysimmediately sure of what to do and how to do it.

Since math/statistics is not really my strong suit, I focused on the verbal parts of the research. I wrotemultiple sections of the paper, created some questions for the questionnaire and I spell checkeverything, because I do not appreciate the presence of any spelling/grammar mistakes in my work.

Marcel Robeer

Overall, I am very glad with how this research project turned out. The collaboration between all fourteam members went very well. Even though some of us had more trouble with the statistics part of the

course than others, everyone took the time and effort to put as many of their strengths into the


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collaboration as possible. As a point of criticism for both myself as well as for the rest of the team, inthe future we should be more self-critical on the final phases of handing in a deliverable. Whilecreating the best possible version of every aspect of the research, we sometimes tend to forget to checkif the story told is consistent and if it truly conveys the message we want it to convey. This point ofcriticism became apparent when the feedback from the two teaching assistants was retrieved. Our ownteaching assistant judged the paper as being clearer than the external teaching assistant, since theexternal teaching assistant did not have the background information we gave our own teachingassistant throughout the course.

For the research project, my main focus was on the statistical (SPSS) part, and on ensuring thatcomponents were properly combined and in accordance with ECIS-standards. Moreover, I spent a lotof time controlling the work that had been made with regards to content and proper use of the Englishlanguage, as well as rewriting parts to form one single story throughout the paper.

paper on the emotional well-being of information science students, affected by misinterpretation

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