Questionnaire about presence in Second Life

I can remember one, maybe, I think. Some off-site survey on gender in SL, and the OP did follow up with a results post, or a site where the results were tabulated, if I remember right. Of course, now I can't remember for sure. It may have been posted in the Resident Created Websites forum instead of the Resident Answers...

But, yeah, followups are most unusual for surveys posted here.

Do you really think the forum folk represent a **significant sample** ?



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Ee, you're correct that we're undergraduates, and probably this article will be never published anywhere (though there is always a small chance it will as one of our co-students already has one of their articles published). But you're wrong that we're trying to do as little as possible, as this article will be an important one for it is the most important we're writing for finishing our bachelor. And if requested we ofcourse can report back our findings as a thanks for taking the survey.

But some of the deviants enjoy being molested and tantalized...especially the badger.

I like presence in SL. Specially when they're pink, frilly and veeeeery expensive.

Thank you. Let's see if this works:



Edit: Cartman says: Dammit!

I don't see that at all. They're trying to get a measure of how much facility with the controls correlates to immersion. It would *seem* that this would be strongly correlated but until you actually do the study you don't know for sure.

It would be good if they specified which controls, which viewer, etc. "Controls" is a bit vague.

Pep always seems pretty mean to me.

Here's an answer for your questionnaire! In fact, it's rare that I see a time this long paragraph applies to the letter!

"Similarly, some of the first educators and researchers in SL were a bit clumsy in their approach. There were early incidents in which Residents felt—rightly—that they were being spied upon or treated like guinea pigs rather than human beings. Imagine how you would feel if an entire class of students set up right next to your vacation hideaway, left trash lying around, logged your conversations, and posted them on the Internet with criticism and mean-spirited comments. This is exactly what happened to some early Residents. Things have improved greatly in the years since then, but sometimes SL Residents are still subject to that kind of inconsiderate behavior. For example, a constant stream of researchers (often students) posts on the Second Life official forums requesting that Residents please take their surveys. Most of these surveys include the same questions that have been asked over and over. Often they aren't spell-checked, or refer to SL as a game—a sure way to irritate a substantial number of Residents. Some Residents make a hobby of critiquing these surveys, pointing out how the questions and their wording make it clear that the researcher isn't familiar with Second Life. Some post outright that they are sick of badly planned surveys and suggest that the researchers log in and do their own research."

From The Second Life Grid: The Official Guide to Communication, Collaboration, and Community Engagement
by Kimberly Rufer-Bach
ISBN-13: 9780470412916

Indeed that paragraph pretty much sums up what I've encountered by posting this. What I'm wondering then is how should you refer to Second Life then if you can't refer to it as a game. In essence it is an MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game). And secondly I have to say that for conducting scientific relevant research you can't rely on your own experiences, certainly not when it's about something as subjective as experiencing presence in a virtual environment. Therefore these kind of surveys were introduced in the first place (primarily by psychologist), to give subjective research scientific value.

It's true that I'm not familiar with how things are going in Second Life, and have only briefly entered the world. But I did hope that through this questionnaire I could find out how residents of Second Life would experience the Grid, not realising that due to the large amount of researchers interested in Second Life that the community has grown tired of these surveys.

You might be able to get better feedback in-world. There's some groups, like Virtual Ability, that might be willing to let you set up a polling device in their welcome area.

People here know what surveys are, and what psychological studies are. It is a pretty intelligent group of people. I think the point some were trying to make is that until you have spent time in the atmosphere you are trying to study your questions will be a bit short of the mark. No one was telling you to write your paper from your own experience. But why not at least have enough familiarity with your target audience to know what to ask them.



Again, something a bit more *pardon* research might have saved you time on.

Half of the surveys are nothing but thinly disguised data mining attempts for marketing purposes, and as far as the others go, we're tired of being looked upon as someone else's lab rats. What is this fascination with studying SL and it's users anyway? Do you send these surveys out to people who play WoW or those other games?

I think, in this case, they don't have control over the questions... they're using a set of questions from a previous study to establish a baseline.

It's hard to respect any of the 'researchers' if they don't respect their test subjects enough to spend a week in game or read the first two pages of this very forum.

How professional will their survey be, if their preliminary work is this sloppy?

Also, all professional studies *pay* those who take the survey. In Linden currency that is not much of an investment. Heck there are plenty of newbies who would be thrilled with 100L - less than fifty cents.

...and that is where it all went wrong.

Seriously, doing a survey about something you're not familiar with, using very generalized questions from a totally different context, questions written over ten years ago, appears to me as a massive waste of time and will probably yield no valuable data at all.

Are you aware how gaming, computer performance and computer graphics have evolved over the past ten years? The issues then are not the same as the issues now.

Just copying a ten year old bunch of questions and use them here is like taking questions from a 19th century text book about the experience of riding a horse carriege and try to use them to measure the experience modern people have riding modern cars.

It's also obvious that the questions were not written with Second Life in mind, since many of them makes no sense to the Second Life experience.
There is only one way to do this the right way: Spend a good amount of time in Second Life to start with. "A good amount" is not one hour, it's weeks or even months. Get the feeling for how it works, try out different things. Then get together for a workshop and design the questions.
I'm sorry, there is no other way.
There are no shortcuts when doing research.

There is no 'good' place to put any survey of this sort. The residents of SL are tired of being poked and prodded by academia.

Most of my answers would be in the six to seven range because I have a lot of experience with SL. The more experience I've had with SL the more natural and immersing it has become.

Let me repeat my advice to look up the Second Life Educators listserve [SLED]. They also have an in-world group, I believe. This group will be more helpful in how to go about studies in SL. Survey kiosks on educational sims are a good way to go. Some hubs have places you can post a survey if you get permission. As some have hinted, incentive payments are helpful, even if the amount is small.

I will stand up for their questions...it is one of the better surveys I have seen. While not specific to SL, it will allow comparison to older studies, and can be applied across VRs if, for instance, they want to study Blue Mars or even WOW. By being less specific to SL, they can get results that can be generalized across different virtual worlds.

Here you go.. something that might give you an idea of how SL is and well, explain why we don't particularly like being used as lab rats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFS4l5B547s

Have you actually read the article I've gotten the survey from?
And second, yes I know how gaming, computer performance and computer graphics have evolved over the past ten years. I'm a 3rd year Artificial Intelligence student at the UvA in the Netherlands. At this point I have played World of Warcraft for a bit more the 4 years (more then is good for me actually).
Most of our information we are using for our study we're getting from articles after 2000. But some articles about presence like the one we used for making this server were written end 90s and seem still useable at this point.

WoW is WoW. SL is SL.
Two very different concepts, even if they both are categorized as "virtual worlds".

Asking general questions with no knowledge about what makes SL residents tick, will only get you general answers that you can't associate with what SL residents find important about their experience. General answers on general questions without full understanding of the context in which they were answered only leads to bad conclusions with little value.

There is no way around it. To study SL, you need to spend enough time in SL before you do your survey. To study WoW, you need to spend enough time there. Then you can do your surveys, draw your conclusions and relate them to your own solid observations and enough empirical evidence.

Doing that will also achieve one very important thing: You will gain the respect of the SL residents you are studying. Believe me, that will make quite a difference in your ability to collect the data you need.

Ok...this oughta be fun (3 year resident here)


1. How much are you able to control events? Events? I don't run a club, therefor I do not control events.....that said..I can pretty much control anything I want to as long as there's no lag or bug issues hindering me....oh, and of course i cannot control others, cause they're real people, not game manipulated characters.

2. How responsive is Second Life (SL) to actions that you initiated (or performed) Huh? Well....that all depends on how the grid is performing....Sundays usually suck since there's usually more residents logged in....and I stay the hell away from really busy/popular areas that are basically like trying to run thru mud.

3. How natural do your interactions with the environment seem? Um, there's nothing natural about flying or teleporting...if there were....I wouldn't be spending my time in SL!!

4. How completely are all of your senses engaged? As long as i can see, I'm good. If there's something good on the Discovery channel or Science channel...I usually listen to that and turn off the ridiculous hip-hop techno or 80s music that most sim owners insist on pumping into the environement.

5. How much do the visual aspects of SL involve you? This is more a question for my relationship with my photoshop program.

6. How much do the auditory aspects of SL involve you? See question 4

7. How natural is the mechanism which controls movement through SL? Well, my keyboard is starting to feel pretty natural to me so I guess that would be 7. As for the animations.....some are quite impressive....some appear to have been designed by Dr Seuss.

8. How awaree are you of events occurring in the real world around you? Hahahha ask my cat.....she'd say 110%.....she wouldn't have it any other way.

9. How aware are you of your display and control devices? I have a very good relationship with my computer...we've been together almost 4 years now.

10. How much do your experiences in SL seem consistent with your real-world experiences? Thus far I have never seen a dragon at a Blues club or an Elf queen shopping for shoes....but maybe I just don't get out much.

11. Are you able to anticipate what would happen next in SL? Yesssss, I'm at the controls....mwaaahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa

12. How completely are you able to actively survey or search SL using vision? I have a 24" moniter.....nuff said.

13. How well can you indentify sounds? Seriously? I think I can tell the difference between crashing waves and a whiny kid.....

14. How well can you localize sounds? see above...I move as far away from the whiny kid as possible.

15. How closely are you able to examine objects? 'Ctrl 0' baby....I can count my prim eyelashes!

16. How well can you examine objects from multiple viewpoints? Camera controls...they're your best friend once you muddle thru learning them.

17. How well can you move or manipulate objects in SL? Oh for cripe sake....VERY well...I just don't have the bloody patience for building (now photoshop, different story)

18. How involved are you in SL? What do you mean by involved? Are you insinuating something here...I don't think I like your tone.....SL and I have a purely platonic relationship and I can log off any time I want.....gees.....

19. How distracting is the control mechanism? Distracting with regards to what? How distracting is walking & chewing gum?

20. How much delay do you experience between your actions and expected outcomes?
Depends on Lag

21. How quickly did you adjust to SL? pretty much as soon as I read the article (well, blurb) in Playboy I was adjusted to the idea....controls....maybe 2 weeks....and then a couple more months to fine tune and learn a few tricks....

22. How proficient in moving and interacting with SL do you feel at this point? How amny ways are we gonna go over the same question?....this goes back to my skills keyboard and mouse which I've been honing for oohh.....20 or so years no (sadly, in HS only the true geeks had computers to access and I think that room had some kind of secret squirrel code)

23. How much do the control devices interfere with the performance of activities? They ARE the performance of activities....

24. How well can you concentrate on activities in game rather than on the mechanisms used to perform those tasks or activities? How well can you focus on the road while your hand is on the steering wheel and your foot is on the gas and your other hand is fumbling thru your CD collection?

25. Are you involved in SL to the extent that you lose track of time? This is a right of passage for new folks in SL....you have to enter the time warp and come out the other side with your sanity in tact and your family still speaking to you.

Last question is somewhat different:
26. Are there any changes you’d like to see in Second Life?
I'd kind of like to see it evolve to the Matrix where we're all just quivering blobs in test tubes wired into the virtual....I think that would be fun.

I really think we should be more helpful when surveys are posted here. Rather than trying to answer from such a selective sampling as the Forums, we should redirect posts such as these to the new tool that LL provided for the collection of research data from residents, at https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/answers.

You know, you've got a point there.