Questionnaire about presence in Second Life

Hello there,
I'm currently conducting an interdisciplinairy research about telepresence (the feeling of being present in a virtual environment) in Second Life at the University of Amsterdam together with 3 other researchers. Witmer and Singer (199 have used a questionnaire to measure presence in a virtual environment and we as research team are interested in answers from Second Life players.
We'd like you to answer these questions with a grade from 1-7, ranging from 1 - not ..., 4 moderately... and 7- totally....

1. How much are you able to control events?
2. How responsive is Second Life (SL) to actions that you initiated (or performed)
3. How natural do your interactions with the environment seem?
4. How completely are all of your senses engaged?
5. How much do the visual aspects of SL involve you?
6. How much do the auditory aspects of SL involve you?
7. How natural is the mechanism which controls movement through SL?
8. How awaree are you of events occurring in the real world around you?
9. How aware are you of your display and control devices?
10. How much do your experiences in SL seem consistent with your real-world experiences?
11. Are you able to anticipate what would happen next in SL?
12. How completely are you able to actively survey or search SL using vision?
13. How well can you indentify sounds?
14. How well can you localize sounds?
15. How closely are you able to examine objects?
16. How well can you examine objects from multiple viewpoints?
17. How well can you move or manipulate objects in SL?
18. How involved are you in SL?
19. How distracting is the control mechanism?
20. How much delay do you experience between your actions and expected outcomes?
21. How quickly did you adjust to SL?
22. How proficient in moving and interacting with SL do you feel at this point?
23. How much do the control devices interfere with 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?
25. Are you involved in SL to the extent that you lose track of time?

Last question is somewhat different:
26. Are there any changes you’d like to see in Second Life?

Please either reply to this post with the answers or send a mail to [email]ian.dashorst@student.uva.nl[/email] with subject SL questionnaire.
Any questions or suggestions can be directed there aswell.

Thanks for your cooperation,
Sarum Mosely (Ian Dashorst) and the other researchers.

ps. I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this, any suggestions about posting this somewhere else are welcome. We'd like to get as many data as possible

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

I'd like to thank you for your responses this far. I haven't done much surveys yet, but have to say this is a big learning moment for me. Although the answers that I received were mostly not what I expected it to be, it has provided me with some information on how to continue. I completely understand your view of: "Why should we take your survey if you don't do proper research about our world"... you're right.

Now I'm gonna try to get my survey up in-world in order to use the way to do this kind of surveys in a way you appreciate more. If I've managed to get it up, I'd post in this thread again and hope you'll take my survey at that point. But ofcourse if you want to respond to the survey this way you're always welcome to.

I'd like to thank you for your responses this far. I haven't done much surveys yet, but have to say this is a big learning moment for me. Although the answers that I received were mostly not what I expected it to be, it has provided me with some information on how to continue. I completely understand your view of: "Why should we take your survey if you don't do proper research about our world"... you're right.

Now I'm gonna try to get my survey up in-world in order to use the way to do this kind of surveys in a way you appreciate more. If I've managed to get it up, I'd post in this thread again and hope you'll take my survey at that point. But ofcourse if you want to respond to the survey this way you're always welcome to.

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

I have to say - the fact that you're listening to what we say and fighting for your research makes points with me.

Totally irrelevant... how many of these surveys the forums get bombarded with do you think will ever be published anywhere? They are mostly undergrad projects where the students have jumped on the SL bandwagon without having any experience whatsoever themselves... they have to do a project and try to find a way to do one involving as little work as possible to get the marks. I would bet that half of them give up and find another topic before they've even come back to the forums to look at any of the replies, the other half will hand it in for someone to spend 10 minutes grading it and that's it, it will be filed and forgotten.

Noone will EVER see the data, however interesting (or not) and the half hour you spent carefully answering the questions is half an hour ofn your life you will never get back (although obviously it's your time to waste in that way if you want).

Admittedly, VERY rarely there is a well thought out and professional looking attempt, which is obviously being carried out by a professional... but these are very few and far between and I'm far from convinced that this one sits in that category.

EDIT: Does ANYONE recall ANY survey poster coming back and telling us the results?

That's a great start. Honestly, though, so many of your questions (identifying sounds?) seem unnecessary.

He's doing a followup to a previous published survey, so he has to use the same questions.

I know, but most of those questions are totally dependent on user experience with the platform AND user interest at any given time. There are times when I'm completely immersed in SL and tune everything RL out, and there are times when SL is secondary (at best) in my attention range. Multitasking, yannow.

1. How much are you able to control events?

2. How responsive is Second Life (SL) to actions that you initiated (or performed)

3. How natural do your interactions with the environment seem?

4. How completely are all of your senses engaged?

5. How much do the visual aspects of SL involve you?

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

7. How natural is the mechanism which controls movement through SL?

8. How aware are you of events occurring in the real world around you?

9. How aware are you of your display and control devices?

10. How much do your experiences in SL seem consistent with your real-world experiences?

11. Are you able to anticipate what would happen next in SL?

12. How completely are you able to actively survey or search SL using vision?

13. How well can you indentify sounds?

14. How well can you localize sounds?

15. How closely are you able to examine objects?

16. How well can you examine objects from multiple viewpoints?

17. How well can you move or manipulate objects in SL?

18. How involved are you in SL?

19. How distracting is the control mechanism?

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

21. How quickly did you adjust to SL?

22. How proficient in moving and interacting with SL do you feel at this point?

23. How much do the control devices interfere with 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?

25. Are you involved in SL to the extent that you lose track of time?

The same is true for MMORPGs, no? Sometimes you're fighting, sometimes you're grinding, sometimes you're waiting for a group to get together, sometimes you're ripping the textures to resell in SL...

Except in SL the only grinding you do is either horizontal or if you're building.