WoW Learning

General:

I spent a substantial amount of time designing the first survey for the WoW Learning project. I was initially unsure what data would be useful, but I knew I wanted enough data to make statements about particular groups of people: men were more social, most women created tank characters initially, millennials were using WoW more for learning, etc. That resulted in the three-part design of the survey: in-game demographic data, the essay question about play motivations, and real-world demographic details. Privacy was important and encouraging people to complete was also important. It was reasoned that in-game demographics were details people would not be as sensitive about, so they were asked for first and real-world demographic details left until the end. It was also recognized that many people would not complete the essay section. Putting the in-game demographic details first meant that certain types of data could be collected that could also be used for other purposes, e.g. answering whether women initially choose healer characters. After use by a small test audience, the survey was modified to include sample answers or explanations of how answers should be calculated.

Where possible and sensible, permissible option lists were used to help reduce the need for data standardization after the survey. For example, I know there are only so many WoW character classes and roles. I know that players can only belong to one of several types of realms. In the case where I wanted time estimates from players, providing a list of ranges means everyone’s has the same degree of accuracy and is expressed in the same units. This was not deemed necessary for year of birth, country of residence, and nationality; they were left as free text. The birth year worked out fine, but some normalization had to be done on the countries and nationalities, e.g. English and Scottish changed to British and Belgium changed to Belgian, etc.

Read more to download the survey as a PDF and see options for specific questions.

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Back in March, I gave an invited keynote at the JISC Scotland/Consolarium Game To Learn: Take 2 conference in Dundee, Scotland. The abstract read:

“All you need to understand is everything you know is wrong.”—Weird Al

My mother told me cleaning toilets builds character if done repeatedly. The other night five friends spent more than three hours dying over and over again while playing World of Warcraft (WoW). She never said anything about dying. I found cleaning toilets only gets you clean toilets. Dying and playing, however, teaches you important things. Demons, dragons, dwarves, and possibly folklore, you could see, but learning, love, and leadership?

Sounds crazy, but it’s true: World of Warcraft has something to say about learning. Prepare yourself, because everything you thought you knew is wrong.

The talk went very well and the slides were available shortly after the talk via SlideShare, but I was somewhat remiss in preparing a version for the blog. You now have a choice of formats:

1. The original slides (slightly cleaned up) via SlideShare.
2. The original slides and notes (slightly cleaned up) via SlideShare.
3. A downloadable PDF version of this blog post.
4. This blog post.

The blog post version represents a written version of the original talk with some of the more important slide graphics reproduced in the body of the post. It can be read without the original slides. Enjoy! If you have any comments, feel free to leave them.

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In May of 2010, our research group was having a surprise visit by someone high up at the university and we all had to produce project information sheets on short notice.  As I had not yet completed the analysis for my recent survey into motivations in World of Warcraft, I couldn’t include any of that; I focussed on the underlying initial motivations and ideas for the project.

Downloadable Resources:

• WoW Learning Research Project A4 poster (230 KB PDF)

The WoW Learning project will have several phases and use mixed research and data collection methods. I’m gathering demographic data about World of Warcraft avatars as well as about their human operators. I’m posing subjective questions via surveys, like “Why do you play World of Warcraft”, to examine people’s motivations and goals. I’m also going to be engaging in a substantial amount of ethnographic research, which has me observing and participating in activities with my own character—activities not too dissimilar to what I have been doing for the last five years in the game—but recording observations and conversations as things occur. As a result, some people will be interviewed in-game; others may be asked for interviews via voice chat systems. Finally, I expect to be looking at communication that occurs on forums.

As with all university-level research involving the participation of people, the WoW Learning project needed to secure approval from the relevant ethics committee in Informatics at the University of Sussex. In the interests of transparency and full disclosure, I’ve attached a copy of the approval to this posting, which you can download yourself.

The submitted proposal also had a project information sheet and an online survey consent form. I have not included those here.

If you have any comments or suggestions for improving the transparency or quality of interactions, I’d love to hear them. Virtual worlds ethnographic research and online data collection via forums is a relatively new area and the issue of what constitutes “informed consent” is still evolving. I’d also love to know if you found this a useful resource document for you own work.

Downloadable Resources

• WoW: Learning Ethics Approval (PDF – 312 kB)