lol. After all the shady/silly survey posts on these boards (including some I was happy to assist in trashing), one finally appears that actually sets up a proper set of ethical standards, but everyone decides it's worthless based on all the expertise they have from their...undergraduate psychology classes. This is probably the first legit-appearing study I've seen on these boards, and I've been subscribed for awhile.

I don't buy the claims, which I hear all the time, about how 'easy' it is to 'fool' a good survey (you'd be surprised). And of freaking course the surveys you'll see coming out of graduate classes are often less than stellar. They're a learning experience. Duh. A really well-crafted survey is a rare (and expensive) creature. But even a less-than-perfect survey can provide reasonably good, if basic, information, as long as it's interpreted based on a full understanding of its limitations. And obviously nobody should take part in a study unless they are completely comfortable with it.

Let me toss one thing out there to consider, though...when the fanatics out there (and believe me, they're out there) who believe that gaming is the Root of All Evil start trying to pass anti-game legislation or create insanely restrictive regulations, one of the most effective counterpoints gaming companies have is solid research.

This particular study may or may not ever contribute to that body of research. It's way too soon to know. But if y'all are going to get all knee-jerky about it to the point where you'd never consider participating in any gaming study, then that's a great loss. Because there are very strong organizations out there lobbying constantly against many aspects of gaming, and without documented research demonstrating that gaming is not in fact evil and destructive, we are left more vulnerable to the crazies.

I really don't care if its "good" or "shoddy"...


I wont even look at it, nor would I spend 40 minutes helping anyone earn a degree that begins with "Psycho"...


Take it for what you will.

 

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Oh dear, I'm terribly sorry. This is the first survey on the VN Board in the last 6 years that I have chosen to not participate in. (That doesn't count other sites or years previous to WoW.)


Thank you for telling me that I could have saved the world and prevented the loss of the great institution of on-line gaming. I'm sure the gaming industry is doing more than I possibly could.


Actually, truth be told, I'm totally disqualified because I am not currently playing WoW. Oops, sorry about posting on the board I'm keeping an eye on.

 

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In my experience, the most screwed up group of people on the planet are psychologists, followed by psychiatrists, and with televangelists a very close third. Not everyone in these groups are crazy, but enough of them are that it's usually pretty safe to be on them being loons.

That being said, I do still have a fondness for psych students (of the female persuasion) from my time running the student computer lab in college. We got some CAI stuff up and running and the psych professors loved it so much they made it mandatory for their students to use. Those girls certainly made all of us geeks days, since they needed a lot of help with our complicated terminals, like how to switch them on and off and other very technical things.

<Thank you for telling me that I could have saved the world and prevented the loss of the great institution of on-line gaming.>

Funny. I'm not seeing where I said that, nor where I offered any criticism for posting on the WoW boards. I know I broke the rules on the boards when I supported the concept of surveys in general and failed to join in on disparaging the OP

But hey, don't let me stop anyone in the thread from continuing to freak out over surveys, psychology, students, or whatever else. You all seem to be enjoying yourselves.

 

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If America gets to the point where legislation is being considered to outlaw gaming I don't think my focus is going to be directed towards taking surveys. I think I'll be more focused on the impending revolution to overthrow the government.

 

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I find video games and other entertainment media to be a very interesting field of study (especially since I am a gamer myself). This applies to many subjects such as music, movies, videos, the internet, books, and so forth. Not very much research has been done on gaming aside from the focus on aggression, addiction, people 'wasting their lives' on video games and so forth. Video games are a legitimate emerging popular forum of entertainment (the shift towards casual games should be indicative of that), and there is a lot more about them that can be said other than how they could lead to aggression and addiction. I really wanted to explore what other sorts of things we could say about video games aside from those oft-visited subjects.


I think that simply because it is a study on video games doesn't make it less legitimate of a research interest. Perhaps it is not a 'classical' field like psychopathology, psychobiology, or developmental psychology, but it is a (relatively) new form of entertainment. Pong didn't even appear until 1972, and compared to the games we have today that's a pretty massive distance gaming has traveled.





I found all of your comments insightful and appreciated Isoke, but I wanted to focus on this and assure you that I do full well understand how limited my study really is. I won't have that large of a sample and my methods do limit what I can draw from my data (quite simply because I don't have a research budget with which to provide better experimental conditions). I don't necessarily expect any statistically significant results from analysis of my data, but to find my hypothesis unsupported is certainly acceptable too.


Thank you for your interest and critique! I hope my responses have addressed some of your concerns.

You score points by responding imo.

 

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