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Increasing Self Efficacy through Social Modeling using Multimedia Authoring
Erica L. Kirkbride, CS 525 Semester Project
Abstract—This paper covers the details concerning the semester project completed by the author. This project was completed for the CS 525, Multimedia Computing and Communications, taught by Dr. Chow at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs during the Spring semester of 2010. This project involves the use of an education version of Autodesk Maya 2010, as well as two very good book referenced on the last page.
Index Terms—Autodesk Maya, Maya Embedded Language, MEL scripting for game design, Maya as a game engine.
I.INTRODUCTION
F
or the semester project in this class, I chose to create a multimedia presentation that would serve to increase self-efficacy of people suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This multimedia presentation will ultimately be used on a recovery website for teenagers.
The background behind this idea revolves around a research project that has been going on for several years between the Psychology department and the Computer Science department at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
The research project involves building a web system to help people recover from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Over the years, we have built many different versions of this web system. Along with the main system, we also have one for first responders (i.e. firefighters or emergency medical teams) as well as for people specifically involved in disasters. Over time, we have also responded to specific natural disasters that have occurred over the years by tailoring a web system specifically for the affected communities. For example, we have a web system built for the communities affected by Hurricane Katrina. During this time period, we are building a web system specifically for teenagers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The recovery web system we have built reflects the work of Banduraand his work in Social Cognitive Theory[1] [2]. Social Cognitive Theory is basically the idea that a person’s cognitive process changes as behaviors are demonstrated to them by other people, especially if these other people are role models or peers. If the person also has a high self-efficacy, then they will be especially influenced by this modeling.
Self-efficacy is the belief that a person holds in his/her ability to influence their surroundings and thus control the outcome of situations [3]. If a person has high self-efficacy, then they will be more likely to take action and be effective in their influence. For example, a motivation speaker, if effective, most likely holds a high belief in their ability to influence others, and thus this person probably has a high self-efficacy in this area. If a person has low self-efficacy, then they are less likely to take action and thus probably less likely to be in a highly influential role. You would probably not find a person with low self-efficacy conquering kingdoms, at least not outside of a video game.
Self-efficacy can be increased through a variety of ways. If a person achieves a goal, then the success related to this achievement serves to increase their belief in themselves. Another way is through persuasion, where someone might act as a positive influence to this person in order to raise their self-efficacy. How a person views their physiological flags also serves to influence their ability. If they see it as bad that they are nervous about an approaching test, then they are more likely to have lower self-efficacy.
The fourth way that self-efficacy can be increased is through social modeling. This relates back to Social Cognitive Theory, which says that a person’s thought process – their belief in themselves in this case – will change based on the demonstrated behaviors of other people.
Using the idea behind this social modeling, in order for my multimedia presentation to successfully increase a viewer’s self-efficacy, it must first have a relatable character. It also must show the character modeling the correct steps to take in a situation which might prove to be challenging to the average teenager suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Lastly, in order to make the multimedia presentation more influential and entertaining, it must have background music and some sort of narration and interesting scenes to take in as the user watches it.
II.Setup And Procedures
Upon initially analyzing how to successfully create a multimedia presentation that would increase a user’s self-efficacy through social modeling, I came up with six main steps which each represented a component needed for a multimedia presentation.
Step one was to brainstorm on the many topic options available, and then choose one that is the best given the time limit and skills involved. Step two was to create a relatable character. Step three was to create a script for the multimedia presentation to follow. Step four was to create each individual scene to follow the script. Step five was to create the background music that would be best for the multimedia presentation. Lastly, step six was to put it all together into a Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language presentation.
A.Step One
Step one took a lot of time to brainstorm. The topics covered on the main web system were many, and my knowledge of what would be a common struggle with teenagers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was small.
Tentatively I set out to make a list of what I thought would be a few good topics to cover. Teenagers could be stressed out and need to relax. My multimedia presentation could model to teenagers how to recognize the need to relax and then how to follow through on the relaxation exercises. Another idea would be to help teenagers make the right decisions when it comes to how they are coping. My multimedia presentation could show a character getting angry and blowing up at someone close to them. Then, the character could take the correct steps in order to apologize and avoid that unhelpful coping behavior in the future. Another option was to show a character thinking negative thoughts, and then taking the correct steps to turn these negative thinking patterns around and how that positively influenced their life view.
I chose to use the topic of social support for my multimedia presentation. Teenagers who are suffering from things such as depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder often isolate themselves and have trouble talking about their struggles. My multimedia presentation would model to the viewing teenagers how to recognize that they need to talk to someone about how they are feeling and how to go about seeking social support after they have recognized the need. The character in the presentation will take healthy steps to prepare themselves, and feel confident about asking for support from someone they trust.
B.Step Two
Step two was to create the character for the presentation. Now that I had an idea in mind of the topic that the character would be playing out, I had a better idea of what necessities the character must have.
First and foremost, the character must be relatable to the average teenager. On top of this, the character had to be easy to manipulate and model through all the scenes of the presentation. My idea was to create a simple yet relatable character similar to the Life Is Good character or the XKCD guys [4] [5].
I chose to use the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) to model my character [6]. This is a free software program that is easy to use and enjoyable to work with. Previously I had little to no experience working with GIMP, so there was a bit of a learning curve. Thankfully, it was easy to figure out because of its user-friendliness.
I knew that I would have to manipulate the character in different scenes to be doing different things such as talking on the phone or having different facial expressions. Due to this, I chose to create each part of the character – legs, arms, face, hair, etc – in separate layers of the image. That way, I could easily change one layer without messing up the rest.
The process of creating the character for my multimedia presentation was also the process of getting to know the GIMP interface and the essential creative process of creating a character all in one. I have never created from scratch a character or a piece of artwork through GIMP. To say the least, it was a bit of a stretch to wrap my engineering mind around the process of being creative. However, I am very happy with the end result and I believe that I might have sparked an interest in art inside of myself in the process. Fig. 1 shows a progression of character designs as I went through this process.
Figure 1. Progression of Character Creation Process
C.Step Three
Step three was to create the script that the multimedia presentation would follow. The process of creating this script was simple by itself, but the actual creation was not easy. I am not a psychologist, although I do have a few years of experience in being around these topics. Still it was not easy to know where to start and what to include in the script.
I knew that the script was one of the most important elements since it will determine how effective the multimedia presentation will be in helping to increase the users self-efficacy, or even how effective it will be through the idea of social modeling as well. The character might look relatable, but if it doesn’t do anything that a teenager can relate to, then what good is it? (My self-efficacy in writing this script was initially low.)
After brainstorming, I came to some initial ideas of what exactly the script had to include in order to be effective. The first thing was the emotions of the character had to come through clearly to the audience. When the character was sad, it had to be clear. When the character was proud, it had to be clear as well. It was also very important to show the difference in how the character felt in the beginning versus in the end.
Also, the script must clearly display the steps we recommend on the web system to successfully and confidently prepare oneself to approach a loved one. Furthermore, the script should include an example interaction between the character and the chosen loved one.
I also chose to include in the script the character’s thought processes and a display of their physiological status at times. This would draw in some of the other areas which influence self-efficacy, and hopefully model to the user how to deal with them as well.
The process I followed to complete a script was simple. I wrote out what I thought the script should be, and then I took it to be reviewed by a few members of the research project team. I got feedback from them, refined the script, and repeated the feedback process.
I would have rather had a more refined script to use for my multimedia presentation, but the timeline for the class project itself did not allow for more refining. You can see my final script for my class project in Appendix A.
D.Step Four
Step four was to create scenes for the script. My idea behind this was to use the same character file in GIMP to create individual scenes which would show a progression of a storyline. This would be similar to a picture book, or possible clay-animation.
First, I had to split the script up into parts. For each part, I needed to create a scene, or several scenes, to depict what was necessary at that point. While creating the script, I knew what I had in mind for each part.
The key in creating these scenes was to make sure that emotion was coming through on the character’s face, body language, and imagery. Since this was my first experience in creating character scenes, it took me a lot of trial and error to get them right. Often, I would have created many scenes in a row before I realized that I was wrong about a few minor details. Then I had to go back and remake a whole line of scenes.
In order to make these scenes, I took advantage of the fact that I created the character image in layers. For each scene, I was able to choose and edit just the layers containing the image parts that needed to change. When I needed to add an object to the scene, I added another layer. Based on what needed to be displayed in each scene, I could toggle the layers on and off to display or not display certain objects or parts. In the end, the actual GIMP file that I was working with contained every object or part that was ever shown in the slideshow. Due to this, if I ever need to go back and edit a scene, or recreate something in the slideshow, it’s a fairly simple process of toggling on and off the correct layers, and maybe doing some small tweaking of certain other layers.
All in all, I ended up creating and recreating over one hundred scenes. Some examples can be seen in Fig. 2. I then used a program called Flash Slideshow Maker Professional to put them all together to produce a movie with correct timing and subtitles [7]. I had never used this program before, but it was fun to work with and included many handy features that helped me produce a nice slideshow movie.
Figure 2. Examples of Scenes Created
E.Step Five
Step five was tocompose Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) music files for the multimedia presentation [8].I chose to use MIDI music files because composing music in the available user friendly interfaces was appealing to me. Earlier in the semester when we worked with MIDI, I enjoyed the process and wanted to have more time to be creative with it.
Initially, I had thought that I wanted a narrator reading the script to be played, but I changed my mind because I thought that teenagers would be more apt to relate to music than a narrator. I believe that teenagers would think that a silent presentation with a person talking would be boring. They might think it is too similar to being lectured or told what to do. On the other hand, teenagers enjoy listening to music and a lot of the popular music in our culture has been made popular because of the teenage population.
I wanted the music to not only have entertainment value, but also to reflect the feel of the multimedia presentation and thus increase the effectiveness of it. I analyzed the slideshow presentation for key points in which a certain emotion was trying to be portrayed and also key points when the emotion should be changing from one to another. Basically, I deducted that I needed a variety of MIDI files ranging from depressing to happy. I also needed to include calm music, celebratory music, and a happy music chime to show up in certain places.
In order to compose the MIDI files, I used software called Anvil Studios [9].I was searching for free MIDI composing software that was similar to the one we used in class, AbleMIDI [10]. However, my free license for AbleMIDI had expired, so I needed to find a new one. I tried several different options, but I found that Anvil Studios was the best for my needs. It provided many of the great features that AbleMIDI did, and many more that came in handy such as the ability to separate a MIDI file into tracks and repeat loops.
I researched other more well known MIDI files online to see what they looked like when opened in the Anvil Studios interface. This gave me a good idea of what patterns I can have notes follow in order to make a song rather than just a bunch of notes being played in random. After gathering some ideas, I began composing the music I needed.
I had a lot of fun composing the MIDI music files. It took a bit of time to put them all together and get them sounding right, but I think the end results sound pretty good. I ended up with roughly five MIDI music files. I composed each one to have a variety of different types of notes. For example, one is a calm sounding drum sort of sequence to play during a time when the character is building up her self-efficacy and confidence through preparation steps. Another sounds like a clapping melody that would play while the character is actually talking to her loved one about needing support. I also put together a couple of fairly short happy sounding chimes to play during a time when the character achieved something in the multimedia presentation. Lastly, I composed a sad sounding melody that expressed sympathy for the character when she was sad at the beginning of the slideshow before she began her process of seeking social support.
F.Step Six
Step six was to put it all together into a Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) presentation [11]. I chose to use SMIL because I liked the positive sounding name. But, more importantly, I wanted to use SMIL because it is a flexible tool for the integration of many different types of media into one presentation. Even though for this class project I was only using a couple types of authored media, I knew that in the future I wanted to have the flexibility to add or subtract them easily if the need arose.