Please Help in my Academic Research Study

Hi people,

I'm a researcher for the Helsinki School of Economics (Finland). I am conducting research into virtual worlds for my dissertation project, and I would really appreciate you taking the time to complete an online questionnaire. Can you please help me?

I am conducting a study to examine opinions of those who participate virtual world communities. One of these communities that I am really interested in hearing from is the Second Life. By participating in this study, you will help me understand people's Second Life experience in general. Participation will take approximately 10 minutes.

The responses you give in this questionnaire will remain confidential, and you are only asked to provide your age and gender.

Thank you very much for your help and time.

Please follow the link below to take the survey:
http://www.webropol.com/P.aspx?id=255886&cid=56235744

one word, NO

Blow yourself.

Sorry, Antion. It isn't so much that we're rude or unhelpful. It is that we get hit by a couple requests like yours a week. Best of luck.

do a search for threads such as yours. you will get a cross section of responses(i think) that should help you with your research. if you really want to do an economic study of SL and it's residents, do what another poster suggested. go in world. talk to various store owners and shoppers. that will help you more than posting a link to a questionable site in a forum.

do a search for threads such as yours. you will get a cross section of responses(i think) that should help you with your research. if you really want to do an economic study of SL and it's residents, do what another poster suggested in a similar thread; go in world. talk to various store owners and shoppers. that will help you more than posting a link to a questionable site in a forum.

You could, as Maggie suggested, search for other surveys here in the forums. Then maybe you could contact those students and you all could get together and share info.

Ahhhh...Friday. I can finally relax.

Anton - we get at least two of these requests per week, and to be honest, a lot of us are sick and tired of being used as guinea pigs, often by people who are pretty rude to us - they order us to answer their questions like we're their employees, never thank us for helping, or sell our information to spammers who screw up our email. It's no fun being treated like garbage by someone who hasn't even bothered to put in the basic effort required to put together a decent survey.

I'm sure your motives are good, and this could be a great survey, but you're probably not going to get much of a positive response here. You might get some answers, but you're really better off doing your research in-world, talking to people who have relevant information, and basing your dissertation on that. Dissertations are a BIG deal. Trusting your degree to some survey on the internet is a recipe for disaster.

You're addressing a culture, Anton. Not a random selection of people, like you would meet elsewhere, but a culture. Treat it like ethnographers do, that's your only serious option. Anything else is not serious research.

Go and live with them, talk to them, buy from them and sell to them, play with them, read their news and watch their TV, dance with them, and you might come back enlightened about the Second Life experience.

Take it from a fellow scientist.

P.S. *skims the survey* They let you get away with cookie cutter questions like these?... On an Internet survey? How about I write a script to fill it with a million completely random responses?...

One of the best surveys I've seen yet.

Well done! I just took it.

It could not possibly be better than mine.

Maybe there is a career in donating my avatar to science?

I can create an alt that does nothing but help people get their advanced degrees.

I'll make sure to give the same random answers I do in RL surveys.

Edit: I must confess it is an interesting survey and made me think since some of my gut responses were contradictory. And yes, I answered as honestly as I could.

I am off to take the survey, just because of the rudeness the original poster suffered.

Yea, verily, yea.

Take THAT, "random response" reliability concerns!!!!!

rudeness, no... honesty, yes

This is trenchant.





And from another person with an (earned) PhD.

.....well.....there WAS a scintilla of rudeness.....

One's instruments of measurement must be VERY finely attuned, of course...... ^_^

I took a look. The questions are kind of redundant:

Using this online system is a good idea.
Using this online system is interesting.
Using this online system is fun.
I would like to use this online system.
The online system is okay.
I feel pleasure when I use this online system.
Using this online system does not frustrate me.
I do not get bored quickly when using this online system.

I got to the page on Brands, I stopped. I don't do marketing surveys.

This is the problem now when people come to the forums, genuinely seeking help with their thesis/project etc. A majority of regulars are tired of the requests so they don't respond (when they may even have good feedback and answers), or they respond untruthfully causing the results to skew.

I really don't think an accurate sampling of responses are garnered through a request in the forums. First, the reason I mentioned above. Second, only a small portion of users stalk the forums, again contributing to skewed results.

I do agree with another responder who suggested going in world, delving into SL and conducting interviews. This may take longer, but the results will perhaps be more reflective of the "average" SL user pool.

Alternatively, and perhaps this has been done, one huge survey addressing every issue should be conducted, sanctioned by LL, and the results available to all the VR majors the world over.

The response in post #3 was inappropriate no matter what kind of survey this is.

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Other than that its just

Oh Yippie another survey.

But not surprising

Considering the source, no.