Fellow Canadian and WoW player Melanie McBride (@melaniemcbride) is composing a Twitter list of educators interested in using World of Warcraft & massively multiple online games for teaching and learning. Get in touch with her on Twitter or check out her list if that’s you.

I’m looking to connect with other people doing research in World of Warcraft or similar MMOs in learning (formal or informal), motivation, or community formation. While I’m especially interested in higher education and distance education, if you’re working in other areas, including training, professional development, or compulsory education, I’d love to hear from you about what you’re doing. You can get in touch with me via this blog, as @Eingang on Twitter, or at the University of Sussex (eingang AT sussex DOT ac.uk).

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Joy of Stats Book Cover

I have been working recently on importing data into SPSS from the first part of my April survey on World of Warcraft motivations. This has been a fairly straightforward process for the most part. The exception is the last question about the respondent’s guild type and purpose. The question was presented as the following:

In a short sentence (140 characters), describe the primary purpose of the guild in which you spend most of your time, or enter “no guild”.

Example: I’m in a social guild that believes in random acts of kindness. We love to dance but we also raid end-game content with other casual guilds.

I am not happy with how the coding for the type and purpose is going. When I created the SPSS codebook for that part of the survey, I initially broke it down into two parts: a type and a primary purpose. The type represented a breakdown primarily between “social” and “hardcore”. The purpose could be a key activity or a purpose. The divisions were chosen based on an an initial review of the received responses (see Table 1).

The “No guild” choice is self-evident. “Not codable” was intended for responses like “Forks” or “I am an herbalist in my guild”. This was usually where the respondent had not answered the question correctly, so no type or purpose could be determined. “No identifiable activity” was intended for responses like “Social”, where no obvious activity was ascertainable.

Andrew and I independently coded the 51 responses according to type and activity. We were allowed to use general knowledge about World of Warcraft but not specific knowledge about any guilds or people if identifiable somehow from the response. The response itself had to dictate the type and purpose.

We almost completely agreed on “type”, but we disagreed by about 28% on the “activity”. If an answer mentioned raiding and that seemed more key than anything else included (or nothing else was included), I coded it as “raiding”. Andrew often coded it as “fun” because he felt the raiding was deprecated or a lesser part even if it was the only thing mentioned. So, for example, if someone said something like “I’m in a social guild and we also do some raiding”, Andrew coded that as “fun”, because the “also raid” was a lesser thing, whereas I would have said “raiding”.

To fix that, he suggested that we add a category that indicated the amount of raiding. I would then have “raiding” and “some raiding”. That seemed sensible, but then left the question of what the “primary” purpose of the guild was if “some raiding” was ancillary. While the survey specifically asked for the primary purpose, but many of the responses, likely because of the poorly chosen example, included one or more activities. When coding, that meant the coder had to pick the one activity that seemed most prominent.

A colleague, in discussion about the first attempt at coding, suggested going for as wide a range of activities as possible before cutting back. I had, for example, initially omitted “performing random acts of kindness”, which occurred fairly often, as an activity. She thought that should be added as well as “social.” Social” as an activity was omitted because I was using the “social” designator appearing in responses to code for the guild type. However, in retrospect, it occurred to me it would be even more appropriate if I changed the guild type to be as interpreted by me based on my assessment of the respondent’s answer; the question did not ask the respondent to specify their guild type but to describe the purpose. I need to stay true to the question’s intent.

A modified codebook then would look something like Table 2.

That does mean that I need more formal definitions of “social”, “hardcore”, and “casual” then to use for the coding guild type. It also means there is a question about how many activities to code, given that very few responses only mentioned one purpose or activity. While the question did ask for a primary activity, I do not have a problem per se with coding for more activities. The questions are then: how many and should order be significant?

Open Issues for Comment and Resolution

• Is the second draft draft more sane in terms of how type and activity are determined in general?
• What are some existing formal definitions of guild types that can be used?
• How many purposes or activities should be coded?
• If multiple activities or purposes are coded, is the order significant? That is, should I assume that the first thing mentioned is the most important, the second, the next, and so on?

Any opinions or help are appreciated, as this type of analysis is new to me.

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For those who entered the contest for Blizzard Store pets (one of which will be the new Celestial Steed mount released on Thursday), I’ll be accepting entry codes for the rest of the week and announce the winners next week. If you didn’t get a code to participate but you did complete the full survey, you can get in touch with me at the project’s e-mail address of wow.learning AT sussex.ac.uk and I’ll see if I can sort it out.

I was hoping for at least 25 responses and ideally around 50. 51 people completed the first page on in-game demographic details and 39 people completed the whole survey, so that’s not too bad at all. For me, now the fun begins: data analysis. Starting next week, I’ll begin the process of going through all the short answers provided and coding them as to motivational themes. Results will eventually be posted here, so stay tuned.

Again, many thanks to those who took the time to help me by participating in the survey or by letting others know about it!

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1. Survey 1: Why Do You Play World of Warcraft You are invited to participate in a study about why you play World of Warcraft....

Popular perception is that massively multiple online role playing games (MMORPGs), like WoW, are just for kids. In fact, only about 20% of WoW players are between the ages of 12 to 19. Some 80% of players are people we around us: our next-door neighbours, local store owners, or even our teachers. What is it that compels people to spend between 20 to 24 hours a week in WoW? This study attempts to answer that question.

It is hoped that this and related studies will contribute towards a better understanding by players and the general public of the real-world learning benefits derived from playing games like World of Warcraft. This particular study will document what makes people invest so much time and energy into playing.

You will not be asked for any information that will identify you personally, but if you wish to be considered to participate in other parts of the study or do not mind being contacted about your survey, you will be invited to provide an email address.

Important Details:

1. The survey will take no more than 30 minutes; and
2. you will be asked to write a few paragraphs about why you play World of Warcraft.
3. The survey is only open to those 18+. This is because of rules about collection of data and participation by minors. Sorry if you can’t participate.

As a reward for participating, you may optionally enter a draw to win one of several virtual in-game pets at the end of the survey. This will require an e-mail address that will be collected on the WoW Learning website and not associated with your survey.

Do feel free to contact the researcher (wow.learning AT sussex.ac.uk) should you have any questions about this study or Dr. Judith Good (J.Good AT sussex.ac.uk), project supervisor.

Start the survey at SurveyMonkey.com

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1. Why Do You Play WoW Survey Now Closed Thanks to everyone who participated fully or partially in my first survey Why Do You Play World of Warcraft. The survey, which opened April 4th,...

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)

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This article was originally posted at E1n1verse on August 4, 2009 as World of Warcraft and Me: A True Confession

Elsheindra (me)

Hello, my name is Michelle Hoyle. By day, I’m a respectable Open University course author, associate lecturer, and course presentation chair. At night, I assume my secret identity: Elsheindra, night elf guild mistress of The One on a European World of Warcraft (WoW) server. You’re probably thinking that massively multiple online role playing games (MMORPGs), like WoW, are just for kids. In fact, according to research (Lenhart et al, 2008; Yee, 2008), only about 20% of WoW players are between the ages of 12 to 19. That means some 80% of players are solid, upstanding citizens of the world. They could be your tutors. They could be your next door neighbours. They could be that person you see walking down the street or buying beef at the butcher’s. World of Warcraft, as of May 2009, was holding steady at 11.5 million active subscribers (Blandeburgo, 2009; Chuang, 2009). That’s over 60% of the online gaming market. It’s the most successful personal computer game ever to be released.

What is it that compels these people to spend around 20 to 24 hours a week (Hagel and Brown, 2009; Yee, 2005) in a virtual world? Is it the killing? Is it the girls? Is it the beautiful scenery? Is it the fantastic fashions? People’s motivations vary, so I can’t give you a universal motivation, but I can reveal something about why I play. I play for three reasons: because I’m a community builder, because I’m a teacher, and because I love to help people. They’re all a bit related. I have spent my life bringing people together and helping them form cohesive, long-lasting communities. It started back in the 1980s with electronic bulletin boards and continues today with World of Warcraft. That’s why I run a guild and co-lead an alliance of guilds.

A guild in World of Warcraft is a collection of people who share things in common. The game gives them some tools for sharing, like a shared chat area, calendar, and a bank in which to store money or items for common use. They usually share a philosophy. My guild, for example, is a social guild with a philosophy of doing random acts of kindness. An allied guild is composed of people together for friendship or fun. When my guild members aren’t out being kind to the other 4000 people on the server, they have each other to group with on small tasks, called quests, like curing sick deer or ridding an area of nasty rabid bears. A guild is also a pool of people with which to go on longer adventures in groups of five for rewards like armour and gold in mazelike environments where there are obstacles to overcome and difficult, large monsters to kill—so-called dungeons. The alliance of guilds I help lead allows smaller social-minded guilds like mine to be able to participate in even larger, more complex adventures that require 10, 25, or 40 people at a time. It is very rewarding to be in a position to enable people to have fun, but at the same time promote learning of important social interaction and problem solving skills.

Where does the learning come from? The learning is, in fact, everywhere in the game. Those 5-person dungeon groups or the larger 25-person groups require leaders to decide on strategy and direct the other people with varied motivations. Some people go to these dungeons only to get better gear. That’s their motivation. Other people go for the feeling of accomplishment in participating in something difficult. When people are there for gear, there can be clashes over who should get it, which requires good interpersonal relationship skills and diplomacy on the part of the group leader. In our guild alliance, we’ve had leaders good at strategy and telling people what to do but with terrible interpersonal skills. That made their adventures not very fun, so people were reluctant to participate. Likewise, running a successful guild over a long period of time requires all manner of leadership and diplomacy skills. WoW is a safe, low-risk environment in which to learn these things and they can transfer into real-world rewards (Brown and Thomas, 2006).

Elsheindra as a healing tree

In order to contribute to a team effectively, people need to learn to play their characters well. Each character has specific abilities. Elsheindra, my character, is a druid healer. She cures people of diseases and poisons and heal their bodies of damage they have taken while fighting. I’ve specialized in being a healer for over four years. I’ve become really, really good at healing by dint of lots of practice and much analysis of how things work. I have pride in my abilities and I love being able to help people in the game in a non-violent fashion, because I was not much interested in hacking and slashing at things. Other people are extremely interested in effectively killing things and devote hours outside of the game to reading about their character’s role and how to improve on it, often in very tiny increments. I’m very willing to share my knowledge and experience with other people and often other very good players are too.

I’ve told you a lot about what kinds of things I do in World of Warcraft and my initial motivations. What I haven’t told you are the things I’ve gained: love, acceptance, friendship, and a Ph.D. project, in order of importance. I’m currently researching what elements in games like WoW contribute to motivation and whether or not that can be transferred effectively into distance learning (Hoyle, 2009a; 2009b). Both feature activities that are a lot of work and, let’s face it, aren’t fun. In World of Warcraft, though, people persist with these difficult, not-fun tasks. I know I’ve persisted in some things because of the friends I’ve made. Those friendships have even transcended the virtual world, with people helping me move from apartment to apartment multiple times, even though they live in a different city.

Basil, my partner

The alliance of guilds I co-run just had a real-life adventure at Bletchley Park and a BBQ at my house afterwards, one of several such successful large-scale events over the years. It’s also not uncommon for some of my guild mates to just come and visit from other parts of the UK or from other countries. One of my guild mates even came along from Denmark to Canada for the summer. Are we just strange misfits? That’s a common perception of gamers. I don’t fit in lots of places but in WoW there’s a place for me, as there is for them, and it’s not just because “on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog”. Finally, “Basil”, my real-life partner, is someone I met in WoW because he was helping me co-lead the alliance of guilds. We’ve been together for over two and a half years. We still play WoW together on a regular basis, although not 20 some hours a week. There’s nothing like a romantic date night with your beloved and 23 other friends.

WoW is like a fairy tale: magic, dragons, true love, fashion, elves, and orcs; but it’s also what I’ve made of it: a place to be myself and to do the things I love to do.

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Where does the learning come from? Learning is everywhere in the game. In order to contribute to a team effectively, people need to learn to play their characters well. Each character has specific abilities and learning to play well requires a substantial time investment. Other people are interested in more effectively killing things and devote hours outside of the game to reading about their character’s role and how to improve on it, often in very tiny increments. Forum discussions abound about the best equipment for particular classes and models are constructed of how in-game equipment will perform under certain conditions.

Figure 1: Organization of The Honourbound Alliance

Organization of The Honourbound Alliance on EU-Thunderhorn depicting the participating guilds on the top and specific adventure teams from the participating guilds on the bottom.
 Source: Hoyle, 2009

The initial research into motivation will be through a set of online surveys. The first survey, intended for about 50 participants from the EU-Thunderhorn server (see Figure 1), will collect some primarily game-related demographic information and allow participants to express in their own words why they enjoy playing the game and why they belong to a given guild. This initial, open-ended survey will be used to develop a set of motivations which will then be used to develop a closed survey to be administered to a larger sample at a later date.

Later research will take an ethnographic approach, relying on existing social capital gained in the game to interview and observe the interactions of players in their guilds, while they adventure together, or while they have fun. Interactions will take place both in game, as experienced directly by avatars, and via discourse analysis of postings in public and private forums. This requires careful risk management and considerations regarding where informed consent is required. I am guided in our interactions by best practices in the area of virtual world studies.

This project and associated research around it will form the basis of my (Michelle A. Hoyle) Ph.D. at The University of Sussex under the supervision of Dr. Judith Good. I am a long-time member of the IDEAs Lab in the Department of Informatics at Sussex as well as a course chair/author and associate lecturer at the The Open University.

References

Hoyle, M. (2009) WoW! Roberts & Susans Game Learning, [online] Slide presentation. Slideshare presentation. (Accessed February 21, 2010).

Wenger, E. (2008) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, New York, NY, United States, Cambridge University Press.

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