Sandra Birnstiel

Doctoral Researcher

School of Business, Economics and Society
Gamification Research Group

Room 3.123
Lange Gasse 20
90403 Nürnberg

Email: sandra.birnstiel@fau.de
Website: https://gamification.rw.fau.de

Sandra Birnstiel is a PhD candidate at the FAU and part of the Gamification Research Group. There she investigates innovative gamification approaches in team sports to optimize performance diagnostics and training.

She completed her Master’s degree in Human-Computer-Interaction in Würzburg, where she investigated the effect of virtual shoes in embodied virtual reality for her Master’s thesis. Sandra received her bachelor’s degree in Human-Computer-Systems, also in Würzburg. In addition to her studies, she worked as a student assistant and contributed to teaching and research.

Research Interests

Gamification, Exergames and Motivational Design
(Team) Sports
Quantified Self
eSports

Publications

2025

Birnstiel S., Reiß S., Fernández Galeote D., Dümler B., Morschheuser B.:
Becoming Your Quantified Self: A Study of the Effects of Personal Avatars in Self-Tracking Sports Apps
In: International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction (2025), p. 1-28
ISSN: 1044-7318
DOI: 10.1080/10447318.2025.2573042
Birnstiel S., Xie R., Eiting J., Morschheuser B.:
Crisis Preparedness Through Casual Gaming? - A Self-Efficacy Perspective
AMCIS 2025 (Montréal, 14. August 2025 - 16. August 2025)
In: AIS eLibrary (ed.): AMCIS 2025 Proceedings 2025
URL: https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2025/intelfuture/intelfuture/14
Pham J., Birnstiel S., Morschheuser B.:
Exploring the Design of Augmented Reality for Fostering Flow in Running: A Design Science Study (Conference contribution, accepted)

2024

Birnstiel S.:
Social Gamification in Team Sports - Design Concept and Preliminary Evaluation
Mensch und Computer 2024 (Karlsruhe, 1. September 2024 - 4. September 2024)
In: Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (ed.): Workshopband 2024
DOI: 10.18420/muc2024-mci-ws01-138
URL: https://dl.gi.de/items/27c84001-67e9-4f13-b87e-f382d8291426
Birnstiel S., Morschheuser B.:
Exploring gamification in team sports: a scoping review and research agenda
8th International GamiFIN Conference (Ruka, Finnland, 2. April 2024 - 5. April 2024)
URL: https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3669/paper4.pdf
Birnstiel S., Steinkamp L., Duemler B., Morschheuser B.:
Designing Gamification for Team Sports: Mapping of the Problem Space and Design Recommendations
Thirty-Second European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2024) (Paphos, 13. June 2024 - 19. June 2024)
URL: https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2024/track14_esports/track14_esports/1
Kirchner-Krath J., Birnstiel S., Morschheuser B.:
Combating Procrastination with Information Systems: A Systematic Review on Design Approaches and Effects
Thirty-Second European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2024) (Paphos, 13. June 2024 - 19. June 2024)
In: ECIS 2024 Research Papers 2024
Oberdörfer S., Birnstiel S., Latoschik ME.:
Influence of Virtual Shoe Formality on Gait and Cognitive Performance in a VR Walking Task
IEEE VR 2024: The 31st IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (Orlando, Florida, USA, 16. March 2024 - 21. March 2024)
DOI: 10.1109/VR58804.2024.00122
URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10494159
Oberdörfer S., Birnstiel S., Latoschik ME.:
Proteus effect or bodily affordance? The influence of virtual high-heels on gait behavior
In: Virtual Reality 28 (2024), p. 1-19
ISSN: 1359-4338
DOI: 10.1007/s10055-024-00966-5
URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10055-024-00966-5

2023

Oberdörfer S., Birnstiel S., Steinhäußer SC., Latoschik ME.:
An approach to investigate an influence of visual angle size on emotional activation during a decision-making task
International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2023) (Copenhagen, 23. July 2023 - 28. July 2023)
In: Chen, J.Y.C., Fragomeni, G. (ed.): Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality 2023
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-35634-6_47
URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-35634-6_47

2022

Birnstiel S., Oberdörfer S., Latoschik ME.:
Stay safe! Safety precautions for walking on a conventional treadmill in VR
2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW 2022) (, 12. March 2022 - 16. March 2022)
In: Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops 2022
DOI: 10.1109/VRW55335.2022.00217
URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9757410

2021

Oberdörfer S., Birnstiel S., Latoschik ME., Grafe S.:
Mutual benefits: Interdisciplinary education of pre-service teachers and HCI students in VR/AR learning environment design
In: Frontiers in Education 6 (2021), Article No.: 693012
ISSN: 2504-284X
DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2021.693012
URL: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.693012/full
Oberdörfer S., Heidrich D., Birnstiel S., Latoschik ME.:
Enchanted by your surrounding? Measuring the effects of immersion and design of virtual environments on decision-making
In: Frontiers in Virtual Reality 2 (2021), Article No.: 679277
ISSN: 2673-4192
DOI: 10.3389/frvir.2021.679277
URL: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frvir.2021.679277/full
Oberdörfer S., Heidrich D., Birnstiel S., Latoschik ME.:
Measuring the effects of virtual environment design on decision-making
2021 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops, VRW 2021
DOI: 10.1109/VRW52623.2021.00103
URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9419338

2019

Birnstiel S., Steinmüller B., Bissinger K., Doll-Gerstendörfer S., Huber S.:
Gartenfreund: Exploring the botanical garden with an inclusive app
Mensch-und-Computer 2019 (MuC'19) (Hamburg, 8. September 2019 - 11. September 2019)
In: F. Alt, A. Bulling, T. Döring (ed.): MuC'19: Proceedings of Mensch und Computer 2019 2019
DOI: 10.1145/3340764.3344446
URL: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3340764.3344446