Research Projects

A Contemporary Approach to Research and Statistics in Psychology

Development of online assessment and learning within Preparatory Physics: helping students compose mathematical solutions to discipline specific problems.

Sara Brice

30 Oct 2024

In this project an online learning and assessment module will be developed for use within Preparatory Physics (PH1001). The online module will focus on assisting students with their mathematical skills. Each week a specific mathematical skill will be emphasised. Students will view a demonstration on how to use the skill and undertake an online assessment task to assess their application of the skill to discipline specific problems. Implementation of this assessment reform will allow more formative opportunities for students to practice, evaluate, and gain feedback on their ability to compose mathematical solutions.

Australian Renderers Association Nutrition Workshops

Leo Nankervis

01 Oct 2024 - 20 Dec 2024

The Australian Renderers Association (ARA) are a key part of the aquaculture feed supply chain in Australia and Asia. Their products are integral to circular economy approaches to nutrition, reusing valuable nutrients in the food supply chain. This consulting project is to present seminars on aquaculture nutrition in Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand, specifically focussing on the role of rendered animal meals in aquafeeds. This aligns with other funded projects on aquaculture nutrition and circular economy of benefit to Australian and SE Asian aquaculture industries.

Australian Renderers Association Nutrition Workshops

Leo Nankervis

01 Oct 2024 - 20 Dec 2024

Story telling strategy of e-commerce live-streamers

Pengji Wang

21 Oct 2024 - 30 Jun 2025

Live-streaming e-commerce is an interactive form of online shopping that integrates video live-streaming with e-commerce, creating a communication channel for live streamers to broadcast product demonstrations and promotions and address consumers' questions in real time (Chen, Dou and Xiao, 2023). The Chinese retailers have pioneered such a powerful new approach, with the market size of live streaming e-commerce industry having reached 1201.2 billion RMB in 2021 and expected to reach 2132.3 billion RMB by 2025 (iiMedia.cn, 2022). With the interactivity nature, live-streaming e-commerce is reported to have a conversion rate of 53%, much higher than that in traditional -commerce shoppers (2.8%) (https://www.videeo.live/report-live-video-commerce-success-retail-2022/). However, the competition in the live-streaming industry is intense. As of December 2023, more than 10 million people worked in live streaming industry in China, and more than 150 million streamer accounts have been opened. With so many live-streamers (https://www.stcn.com/article/detail/1073584.html); yet among streamers whose main source of income is live broadcast, only 0.4% have a monthly income of more than 100,000 yuan, and 95.2% have a monthly income of less than 5,000 yuan (http://paper.ce.cn/pc/content/202401/04/content_287273.html). With live-streaming e-commerce’s popularity and the intense competition in the eco-system, an increasing number of studies are dedicated in understanding the success factors in therecent years. One of the important factors is the selling strategies adopted by the streamer. Key strategies identified include physical evidence strategy (visual setup and background music) (Ho, Liu, and Chen, 2022) and show scheduling strategy (Chen, Dou, and Xiao, 2023). An important selling strategy that works well in the traditional personal selling is storytelling, since it facilitates sales relationships through personal and business stories revealing similarities of worldview, ideals, and status, among other characteristics (Gaur, Herjanto, and Bathula 2012; McGregor and Holmes, 1999). In the e-commerce context, a few famous live-streamers have demonstrated the impact of telling good stories. For example, Dong Yuhui, an e-commerce live-streamer from Oriental Selection, is well known for his way of sharing personal story, when selling products. His four-hour sales session taking place on Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app in Jan 2024 earned 163 million RMB (22.73 million USD) in gross merchandise value (GMV) from selling agricultural produce and other foods like canned goods and sweets (https://daoinsights.com/news/oriental-selections-dong-yuhui-rakes-in-163m-at-own-channel-debut/). However, very little scholarly effort has been made to understand the storytelling strategy among live-streamers. Luo et al. (2021) use conversation logs from live-streaming shopping and find that the linguistic style of appealing to personality has the greatest positive impact on sales, but the linguistic style of appealing to logic has a negative impact. However, the linguistic pattern alone is still far from enough to characterize how live streamers have reshaped e-commerce using storytelling. For example, whether and how do live streamers integrate brands into their stories, what types of topics should be addressed in the stories, and how do live streamers plan their shows, given the fast-paced selling episodes and lack of physical interaction with the real customers? These are novel topics that do not appear in traditional e-commerce settings, yet are important in e-commerce setting. As a result, this study focuses on live-streamers’ story-telling strategy, and examines the following research questions: what is the optimal content, style, frequency and duration of the storytelling by e-commerce live-streamers? Theoretically, this project will enrich the literature on e-commerce by revealing how live-streamers’ story-telling skills and strategies help engage customers. Practically, the findings will inform the live-streamers and the businesses about the best ways of developing the relevant training, constructing and communicating the stories to engage customers. Finally, this project has received ethics approval with the JCU Ethics Identifier H9502.

Townsville City Council Saltmarsh Restoration

Nathan Waltham

30 Oct 2024 - 31 Mar 2026

Undertake saltmarsh restoration trials with Townsville City Council within their estate.

Townsville City Council Saltmarsh Restoration

Nathan Waltham

30 Oct 2024 - 31 Mar 2026

Undertake saltmarsh restoration trials with Townsville City Council within their estate.

Cane toad call recognition for DPI NSW Invasive Species Biosecurity

Lin Schwarzkopf

30 Oct 2024 - 30 Jun 2025

DPI NSW has asked us to process some audio data for them, to search for cane toad calls to allow them to mobilise control in response to the discovery of toads in the audio data.

Developing a model for multidisciplinary team-based care for General Practice (Phase one)

Zhanming Liang

30 Oct 2024 - 31 Mar 2025

This is the first phase of a multi-phase project aiming to develop a sellable model that guide the implementaiton and adoption of multidisciplinary team-based care for general practice across primary health networks in Australia. The current project (Phase one) includes conducting a systematic literature review, development of one publication and constructing a survey Instrument informed by findings of the systematic review.

The role of stable isotopes in modelling water balance of tropical catchments (Old ID 25057)

HanShe Lim

19 Jun 2018 - 21 May 2021

This project aims to test a water balance model, IWBMIso, for two contrasting tropical catchments in Far North Queensland and assess if the model performance improves when information about stable water isotopes is included in the model. The results will help model users and developers in improving the model for the general user who will mainly use the IWBMIso to model catchment water balance for the purpose of water resource management and planning.