
Clint Alan BowersUniversity of Central Florida | UCF · Department of Psychology
Clint Alan Bowers
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Introduction
Publications
Publications (261)
Background: Suicide risk is elevated among first responders. The three-step theory of suicide (3ST), not yet tested in first responders, proposes that the combination of pain and hopelessness leads to suicidal desire, but most relevant studies examine psychological pain and a few studies exist regarding the impact of physical pain. Aims: This study...
This study evaluates the effectiveness of a brief psychoeducation training program in reducing mental health stigma, both toward others and oneself, among public safety personnel, while also comparing the relative effectiveness of in-person and online training modalities. In total, 1686 public safety personnel in Florida received psychoeducation on...
Introduction
Sleep hygiene education (SHE) consists of environmental and behavioral practices primarily intended to reduce sleep problems. Currently considered ineffective as a stand-alone treatment, the manner in which the education is typically delivered may be ineffective for the acquisition of new knowledge. The purpose of this study was to det...
Introduction
For over two decades school shootings have become a significant concern, especially in the United States. Following a rampage school shooting, extensive resources are devoted to gathering all of the information surrounding the event. To date, few studies have compared completed to averted, or near-miss, school shootings. This study uti...
Throughout their career, first responders are exposed to more traumatic events than most people will ever see in their lifetime. As our understanding of the impact of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the occupational and social functioning of first responders has increased, so has the need to find treatments that are efficacious and accepted...
Workplace coaching has experienced a dramatic rise in popularity over the past decade and is one of the fastest growing performance-enhancing interventions used by modern organizations. Yet, despite its popularity, workplace coaching has not been the subject of much empirical research and a true science of coaching has yet to be developed. The purp...
In June 2021, a condominium in Florida collapsed, with the loss of 98 lives. Search and rescue teams spent 2 weeks, recovering the victims. This study's objective was to assess the presence of psychological symptoms that might emerge in the following months, using the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), Patient Health Questionnaire−9 (PHQ-9), General...
Stigma about mental illness is often identified as one of the most prominent obstacles to seeking mental health services. This seems to be particularly true among first responders. Unfortunately, the research regarding stigma in first responders is lacking. This may be due, in part, to the absence of appropriate measurement tools to allow such rese...
First responders have been shown to be at risk for several negative mental health outcomes. However, it is not always clear how to intervene to prevent these outcomes. One approach has been to try to reduce the obstacles to care that might be imposed by the profession or the organization. In this paper, we investigate whether the nature of these ob...
This chapter focuses on the broader topic of team resiliency within the healthcare profession. Specifically, the authors discuss the current body of literature relating to healthcare teams, the concept of team resilience, and its potential application within the field of healthcare. Moreover, the authors propose different means of developing team r...
This chapter briefly reviews the literature that explores the training technique of deliberate practice and the related constructs, training outcomes of achievement goal orientation, self-efficacy, perceived instrumentality, and reflective practice. This work explains how educators can use and measure these variables to enhance current training met...
Workplace interventions that leverage social tactics to improve health and well-being are becoming more common. As an example, peer mental health support interventions aim to reduce stigma and promote treatment seeking in first responder populations. Given the social nature of these interventions, it is important to consider how the preexisting soc...
Disseminating efficacious psychological treatments remains a challenge for researchers and clinicians. In the case of social anxiety disorder (SAD), Social Effectiveness Therapy for Children (SET-C) has been demonstrated as an efficacious intervention but elements of the protocol, such as peer generalization sessions, remain challenging to conduct...
Firefighters are at risk for chronic sleep disruption due to their rotating 24-hour on and 48-hour off work schedule and hazardous work conditions. Forty-five firefighters were assessed to determine the impact of their shift schedule on sleep duration, sleep quality, processing speed, sustained attention, vigilance, and mental health. Assessments w...
Theoretical models of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as exposure therapy (EXP) methodology suggest that trauma recall is crucial to altering the conditioned fear response associated with PTSD. However, it is unclear whether limited recall of the trauma event attenuates treatment outcomes. This study examined whether the extent of diff...
Serious Educational Video Games (SEGs) play a large role in education for both children and adults. However, the budget for SEGs is typically lower than traditional entertainment video games, bringing with it the need to optimize the learning experience. This article looks at the role game immersion plays in improving learning outcomes, using the R...
Mental health professionals are only recently beginning to understand the risks for stress-related disorders experienced by first responders. For example, it is clear that first responders are at increased risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Unfortunately, clinicians currently have a limited repertoire with which to treat these disorders. Trea...
Teams in action, such as emergency responders and medical personnel, are challenged with environments that are characterized by time pressure, rapidly unfolding events, high information processing demand, and severe consequences of wrong decisions. Such environments in general have adverse effects on team performance. To mitigate this problem and i...
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulting from military service is a common, yet often chronic condition. Treatment outcome often is attenuated by programs that are (a) lengthy in nature and (b) constricted in their target outcomes. These limitations leave much of the emotional and behavioral impairment that accompanies PTSD unaddressed and/or...
Teams are at the core of organizations and their success depends on multiple factors. When faced with stressful conditions on daily basis such as time pressure, rapidly unfolding events, high information processing demand, and severe consequences of wrong decisions, team members are exposed to "wear and tear," termed as the Allostatic Load, that ca...
Game researchers are now moving from exploring if games can teach to how games teach. The caveat is that not all games teach but that all good games teach. Leaving a simple truth, it is hard to make a good game, no less a good game that is also educational. The real challenge is getting the people with the right design abilities to make these types...
Mental health providers cannot ignore the importance of utilizing technology in this era of the internet of things. This chapter reaffirms the need for mental health providers and software developers to work in concert with each other when developing technology for mental health. The authors also articulate the importance of the patient and the pat...
Background: Emergency dispatchers serve as a unique population to examine the impact of exposure to trauma given their continuous indirect exposure to stressful and traumatic calls. Furthermore, the unique experiences of emergency dispatchers warrants consideration of preventative measures to mitigate the negative outcomes associated with the job....
The study of the subjective gameplay experience spans multiple disciplines. Despite decades of interest, little agreement has been found regarding the way particular constructs—namely immersion, involvement, presence, and flow—are used to describe this concept. Without the consistent usage of well-defined constructs, it is difficult to further scie...
Serious Educational Video Games (SEGs) play a large role in education for both children and adults. However, the budget for SEGs is typically lower than traditional entertainment video games, bringing with it the need to optimize the learning experience. This article looks at the role game immersion plays in improving learning outcomes, using the R...
The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among U.S. veterans deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan necessitates the need for comprehensive assessment and treatment strategies. This study investigated the utility of a combat-related PTSD symptom provocation paradigm to elicit unique neurological responses across three groups: combat veterans...
Exposure therapy (EXP) is one of the most widely used and empirically supported treatments for PTSD; however, some researchers have questioned its efficacy with specific populations and in targeting specific symptoms. One such symptom, guilt, has garnered increased attention in the PTSD treatment literature, as it is associated with worse symptomat...
Nearly 1 in 5 people living in the United States cannot read at even a basic level, a condition which greatly affects health outcomes. Despite this, most electronic health resources are reliant not only on text, but on complex reading and text manipulation that may result in poorer outcomes and reduced usage by patients with reduced literacy. This...
Resilience has been recognized as an important phenomenon for understanding how individuals overcome difficult situations. However, it is not only individuals who face difficulties; it is not uncommon for teams to experience adversity. When they do, they must be able to overcome these challenges without performance decrements.This manuscript repres...
Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) realistically incorporates traumatic cues into exposure therapy and holds promise in the treatment of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a randomized controlled trial of 92 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and active duty military personnel with combat-related PTSD, we compared the efficacy...
The purpose of this study was to evaluate a newly designed peer support training program for first responders titled Recognize, Evaluate, Advocate, Coordinate, and Track (REACT). REACT was developed in partnership with public safety agencies to address the need for promoting psychological health. This resulted in the development of a program that u...
While the clinical communities are aware of the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among OEF/OIF/OND veterans, further efforts are necessary to bolster comprehensive strategies for assessment and treatment. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a combat-related PTSD symptom provocation paradigm would elicit unique neu...
Background: The current study examines posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom clusters in the context of indirect exposure and compares symptom expression between emergency dispatchers and veterans. Given that a dispatcher's job is inherently different from that of our military, it would be expected that their PTSD symptoms are different as w...
Mental health providers cannot ignore the importance of utilizing technology in this era of the “Internet of Things.” This chapter reaffirms the need for mental health providers and software developers to work in concert with each other when developing technology for mental health. We also articulate the importance of the patient and the patient's...
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a standard tool in today’s workplace and is incredibly convenient. But although we are all pretty used to writing emails and instant messages, we still struggle when writing them. Why? We often wonder if our receiver is going to misconstrue the meaning or tone of our message. What are missing in CMC are nonv...
The objective of the current research was to examine whether one potentially effective gaming strategy—achievements—has a positive impact on learning in a game-based environment. An achievement in a video game is a reward or recognition earned by players for an in-game accomplishment. This paper describes a series of studies to evaluate the effects...
As of 2013, US persons spend an average of 37 hours per month using smartphone applications, another 27 hours using the internet on personal computers, and 133 hours watching live television (Nielsen, 2014). Coupled with the estimated 64% of US persons that own a smartphone (Pew, 2015), people are spending a large sum of their waking lives plugged...
In a previous study, emergency dispatchers were surveyed to determine how stressful it was to handle various 911 calls (Trachik et al., 2015). Given that it is not possible to change the inherent stress associated with the job of emergency dispatching, it is important to examine additional strains that contribute to making the job more stressful. T...
As game jams become more popular among both game developers and people interested in becoming one, the number of jams that occur each year has grown at an astronomical pace. Given this popularity, it is clear that participants are gaining some intrinsic value from participation. This appears to come in many forms including new friends, business par...
Poor team communication has been attributed to many patient safety issues in healthcare. Efficacious team training methods are needed. The present study examines the use of a game-based training approach for enhancing surgical team communication skills. Participants who played the game achieved improved declarative knowledge, and had greater levels...
The present work seeks to examine the importance of expectancies in computer-mediated treatment and training programs. Two studies examining the role of patient and trainee expectations are presented. Study 1 investigated how expectations of a training game for military surgical teams influence training performance outcomes. The findings have impli...
Objective:
Serious games for health care are on the rise. These games are thought to be effective because they can provide information in a context that is engaging. However, it is likely that game-based health training is most effective for a subset of people with specific skills, traits, and experiences. Understanding the factors associated with...
Background
Norms clarification has been identified as an effective component of college student drinking interventions, prompting research on norms clarification as a single-component intervention known as Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF). Previous reviews have examined PNF in combination with other components but not as a stand-alone interven...
This study examined the effects of using serious games for training on task performance and declarative knowledge outcomes. The purpose was to determine if serious games are more effective training tools than traditional methods. Self-efficacy, expectations for training, and engagement were considered as moderators of the relationship between type...
Why do people learn after playing a serious game versus a game for entertainment? Serious games impart knowledge because there is a pedagogy driving the learning process. Serious games must successfully employ peda-gogical methods and theories to increase the likelihood that knowledge is. The process of learning is hindered when an unusable interfa...
Expectancy theory is based on the subjective probability (expectancy) and projected value (valence). Based on this notion, an individual chooses his or her behaviors based on the interaction between the valences perceived to be associated with the outcomes, and the appraisal of the probability of that behavior resulting in those outcomes. Expectanc...
Selective mutism is a psychiatric disorder characterized by a withdrawal of speech in situations during which speech might be expected typically. Diagnostically speaking, selective mutism is labeled an anxiety disorder, likely due to the high co-occurrence between selective mutism and other anxiety disorders (e.g., social anxiety disorder), and the...
Serious game design presents a unique challenge to researchers and developers alike. The most successful games are designed by integrating two disparate bodies of knowledge: training and education, and high-quality game design. Simply pairing instructional elements with traditional game elements, however, is often inadequate. In an attempt to impro...
Mental health problems are pervasive in society, as evident by the billions of dollars spent each year on treatment for the millions of people suffering from various mental health disorders. Accordingly, the demand for mental health services is growing, which in turn has raised a call for low-cost and effective treatments. One approach currently be...
Emergency dispatchers are exposed to potentially traumatic events at rates that likely exceed that of emergency first responders. Although not physically present at the time of the incident, it is likely that this repeated exposure in concert with highly stressful work conditions could lead to potentially negative emotional and physical outcomes. T...
A notable trend in modern training is the dramatic increase of commercial game production platforms as a basis to create enriched computer-based training. These programming technologies allow developers to create virtual environments in which to embed demonstrations, interactive practice, feedback, and other instructional strategies to replace trad...
With the constant push to do more for less, the use of virtual environments (VE), simulations and serious games has exploded. Human Factors (HF) personnel often use these tools to support a range of activities, including modeling process or the effects of humans in the system; designing, testing and validating new systems and processes; training sk...
Many important tasks depend upon the ability of personnel to be able to extract information from verbal communication in suboptimal conditions. However, there is little guidance in how best to train people to improve this skill, specifically regarding the most effective combination of human or synthesized speech with or without text captions. In th...
The U.S. Marine Corps’ OSCAR program teaches resilience skills to warfighters. This paper describes the design and development process of Project ASPIRE, a light-weight, Flash-based game that serves as a practice environment for the skills learned in OSCAR. Rapid, iterative development/usability cycles were used to identify the ways in which the ga...
Alcohol use remains prevalent among youth, with nearly three quarters reporting alcohol use by the end of high school (Monitoring the Future, 2012). More than half of 12th graders report having been drunk at least once in their life and 24% report binge drinking at least once in the past two weeks (having five or more drinks in a row). Overall, alc...
Underage alcohol use continues to be one of the most frequent contributors to academic underachievement, interpersonal problems, serious injuries, and death among children and young adults (U.S. DOH Call to Action to Prevent & Reduce Underage Drinking, 2007). Parent-focused programs can be effective in preventing alcohol and substance misuse among...
Some analogs of Antide and congeners with higher water solubility have been synthesized by substitutions in positions 1, 5 or 6 with hydrophilic residues. In position 1, D-3-Qal has been incorporated in four peptides and D-3-Pal in one peptide. In positions 5 and 6, D and L-3-Pal, PzAla and (DSer)Lys have been tried. In one peptide, D—(AcDSer)Lys w...
For the development of serious gaming, it is necessary to articulate the specific features that lend themselves best to the creation of effective learning games. Given the limited resources of the typical serious games developer, time and money should be spent in a way such that features with the greatest return on investment take priority. Opening...
Pressures to increase the efficacy and effectiveness of medical training are causing the Department of Defense to investigate the use of simulation technologies. This article describes a comprehensive cognitive task analysis technique that can be used to simultaneously generate training requirements, performance metrics, scenario requirements, and...
Virtual environments, simulations and serious games are increasingly being employed for
research, training, education, evaluation, and various business endeavors. In a redux of a favorite
session from HFES 2012, this session will describe and demonstrate some of the diverse uses for
virtual environments (VEs) in an alternate demonstration format. T...
The overarching goal of learner assessments is to identify areas of skill and deficit and to use this infor-mation to guide future instruction or error correction through feedback. To date, a variety of methods have been used to better understand individual learners. However, the tools used to assess learners’ internal states have only allowed rese...
Entertainment gaming research typically focuses on the underlying motivations for play and on the subjective experience. A review of the literature has identified three factors that commonly affect patterns of play: gender, age, and gaming experience. This paper examines whether these individual differences affect the subjective experience of play,...
Trainers need to identify effective, low-cost training experiences for today’s military workforce to meet the increasing demands of today’s warfighting environment. Although low-fidelity simulations have been demonstrated to be effective in this regard, research has demonstrated that specially tailored pre-experiences can increase the effectiveness...
Providing resources and stress management techniques is vital to the improvement of mental health outcomes of deploying warfighters. Despite the large amount of resources available, they are largely ineffective owing in part to lack of familiarity and knowledge of the resources themselves. This may be ameliorated through game-based practice environ...
Training for enhanced team performance currently offers several challenges in both delivery of training and assessment of outcomes. If a team is performing poorly, is it a problem with teaming skills, with individual task-specific skills, with the cognitive readiness of the individuals on the team, or with the cognitive readiness of the team itself...
Researchers have recently begun to articulate factors associated with cognitive readiness. For the most part, these efforts have focused on individual performance. However, it is apparent that many modern tasks require workers to perform as part of a team. This may impose additional cognitive readiness demands. This chapter extends the work on cogn...
Multimedia training methods have traditionally relied heavily on video-based technologies, and significant research has shown these to be very effective training tools. However, production of video is time and resource intensive. Machinima technologies are based on videogaming technology. Machinima technology allows videogame technology to be manip...
One element of growing interest in the video gaming literature is the flow state, which is a pleasing and engaging experience commonly reported by players of games. As such, there are many different measures and methods that seek to quantify the flow experience. The present work examined whether a common measure of flow, the Dispositional Flow Scal...
This study examined the impact of a computer simulation designed to provide the opportunity for individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) to practice relapse prevention skills. Participants were 41 male veterans enrolled in an intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment program. Participants were randomly assigned to either view educational...
Virtual environments, simulations and serious games are increasingly being employed for research, training, education, evaluation, and various business endeavors. This session will describe and demonstrate some of the diverse uses for virtual environments (VEs) in an alternate demonstration format. The session will begin with demonstrators providin...
Teams developing serious games are often small and face both time and budget constraints. Although its importance is well-established, iterative usability testing is often forgone. Further, serious games present unique challenges that they must be usable, enjoyable, and effective. It is necessary that the game's design is evaluated at several stage...
The valid assessment of engagement a player of serious games experiences is vital if future research is to focus on the role such a state has in improving learning outcomes. Researchers have attempted to do so by quantifying aspects of flow and immersion. Both constructs are distinctly defined in the literature yet feature a great amount of overlap...
Usability testing is an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of serious game development. Issues in usability can drastically
impact user experience and thus the learning outcomes associated with serious games. The goal of this paper is to provide
serious game developers with an approach to efficiently and effectively apply usability testing int...
According to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), important predictors of system use include application-specific self-efficacy,
ease of use, and perceived usefulness. Current work with the TAM includes extending the assessment framework to domains such
as serious games as well as how other typically under-researched factors, such as gender, affe...
Personalization, in the realm of Serious Games, is the extent to which users believe that the digital environment is tailored
to their characteristics and preferences. This belief can have major repercussions for a user’s experience with the game and
can subsequently be used to maximize the return on investment for serious game designers. Other fac...
Abstract Computer-assisted learning, in the form of simulation-based training, is heavily focused upon by the military. Because computer-based learning offers highly portable, reusable, and cost-efficient training options, the military has dedicated significant resources to the investigation of instructional strategies that improve learning efficie...
Discussion and study of the social-emotional development of deaf and hard of hearing children, though extensive, has yet to provide an accurate understanding of the differences between deaf and hearing children. Consequently, the goal of the researchers was to conduct a profile analysis to determine similarities and differences between the two grou...