PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Feedback is a central element in pertinent work design models and research highlights its importance for work-related outcomes, such as work engagement, motivation, and satisfaction. However, many tasks and workplaces do not provide sufficient feedback to take advantage of this effect. Though originally designed to instruct workers, assistance systems, especially those implementing Augmented Reality (AR), may also offer real-time feedback on task execution and thus improve work attitudes. However, this effect is under-researched, because the technological implementation of such adaptive feedback features in AR-enabled assistance systems is still challenging, as the systems need to evaluate complex and changing situations. We therefore conducted a one-factorial experiment through point-of-view video vignettes to test if real-time feedback (vs. no feedback) in AR-enabled assistance systems leads to higher task satisfaction (H1), higher work motivation (H3) and higher work engagement (H3). Participants (N = 165) were recruited through Clickworker and were presented with an AR-enabled assistance system to support an assembly task. The manipulation check was successful, and the subsequent analysis showed that task satisfaction was significantly higher for the feedback condition (t(163) = 1.68, p < 0.05, d = 0.26), supporting H1. However, there were no significant differences for work motivation (t(163) = 1.14, p = 0.13) or work engagement (t(163) = 0.87, p = 0.19), thus H2 and H3 are rejected. We discuss how our findings may impact implementation of AR-enabled assistance systems and future research, and provide an outlook to the role of adaptation and learning in assistance systems.