questionaire advice?

Hi

I am doing a school research project on social MMOG's - specifically Second Life and There. It is basically about whether or not participants ever use them to interact with real world friends or relatives.

I want to find as many places as possible where Second life players and There players hang out, so that I can post a link to a questionaire.

Can anyone suggest some popular forums for me to go to, or any constructive advice generally about how to proceed in getting responses. I really need responses quite badly because my deadline is coming up. Thanks

Hihihi xana Good to hear you've taken interest in SL as part of your research! Ah... well of course, this is a popular forum -- and the official one, so you can post it here in the appropriate section. It'll help to engage in positive discussion and answer any questions people might have about your... ah... questionnaire. Also, you'll want to try SLUniverse.com and the forums on there!

As for doing research, you'll want to be certain you are well-informed via the Research Ethics Policy, which can be found here:

http://secondlife.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Research%20Ethics%20in%20Second%20Life

Hope this helps and feel free to question me, this sounds fun. Hehehe.

Hi, Xana!

Well, if you've ever wanted to find a place that takes the minutia of Second Life, clubs it to death, shoots the horse it rode in on, and proceeds to beat its corpse into the groud...you've come to the right place.

Seriously, This is a great place to get some input on SL, and I'd be happy be a questionee. THe only oher place I know of on the web that has some SL posting is www.sluniverse.com...and I'm sure people around here will have some other places to post to.

As to in-world....There are *so* many venues. The one I'd reccomend right off is the Thinkers group, there's a great cross-section of thoughtful folk there. They meet most Tuesdays at 2p Linden Time...the location is usually posted in the Events section.

Good luck with your research!

Thank you both for your replies.

I read the Research ethics policy, and have sent my proposal to Lindon Labs. I understand why people might be cautious about researchers being on here.

My only research method is the questionaire - I am not going in game or recording what people are saying either in game or on these forums - I am unable to get in game at the moment anyway, because the computers in the uni won't allow me to download the program.

But I have been in game before - all too briefly I am afraid, and I found it all incredible. That is the reason why I chose this research area - simply because it was a whole new world to me, and I could see some potentially positive sociological implications to it.

Anyway, I read some of the work of a guy called Yee on the net, who has done some really interesting research on the big adventure MMORPGs - and his work influenced me to use a questionaire method, but apply it to social MMOGs instead, because I imagined that there must be even more socializing going on in places like There and Second Life than he found on the adventure types.

I also decided to look at whether participants were using these virtual places to interact with family members and pre-existing friends, perhaps that lived some distance away - that is something Yee hadn't covered, and I wanted to find something that hadn't been looked at before.

I really would like to post a link to my questionaire here now, because I have been sitting on this for too long and now I am facing a deadline, but I don't want to take the chance of getting kicked off, so I will wait to see whether this is all okay with the powers that be.

Thanks again

Interisting research idea!

This is actualy a question that I would be interisted in knowing as well. I personaly haven't heard too much of people using SL and There to talk to family members, but it would be a perfect venue for such a thing.

I wish you the best of luck! If you are permitted to go through with the questionaire posting, would you be publishing your results anywhere we could see?

High school or college research?

The first nightI logged in I saw a lot of Daytons around the welcome area and found out they were all family and they had just gotten mom online....seems they were using it to keep in touch because they were spread out.

Hi

I am resurrecting this thread.

I contacted Lindon Lab, ages ago, sending them my research proposal, and they never replied back.

Maybe, they are only interested in research projects which are going to be published, i don't know. Anyway, I can't really wait any longer, I really need to get this done.

Here is the link to my questionaire:

http://www.studentresearcher.com/box.asp?box=1129

Please, please fill it in if you have the chance. It would be a real life saver for me, because this project is important to my final mark for my sociology course.


It might look like it has a lot of questions, but its all pop down boxes, except for one question, and it should take between five and ten minutes.

Thanks a lot.

If you have any further questions or comments, I will try to answer them.

Hmm, LL should have replied by now. Poke Robin Linden inworld, and you should be able to get a fairly instant answer.

-Adam

I posted this on sluniverse, and it appears that some of the phrases I have used in my questionaire may cause confusion.

I really don't want this to stop anyone from filling it in though.

Let me just say that, if you aren't quite sure how to respond to a question, please don't worry about it too much, and just go with your gut.

I really am just desperate for some data.

Thanks again

bump

Filled it out, though many of the questions did not apply to me, or only did so slightly. Good luck with your project.

once last time around