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11-06-12, 11:13 PM   #1
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Research for WoW

I am an undergraduate studying psychology at Harvard writing my thesis on how people interact with the online universe. I am fascinated by this subject, and I really would like you all to complete this survey that asks questions about how you all interact with online games. Also, if you take it you can enter yourself to enter an Amazon gift certificate! Because I am an undergraduate, I did not receive a lot of funding and really need as many people to take this survey as possible for me to write a good thesis. Feel free to contact me with questions about the study! The survey link is below!

https://harvard.qualtrics.com/SE/?SI...BJGnvJYf7BiYyV
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11-06-12, 11:31 PM   #2
Dridzt
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I fail to see what the survey has to do with online gaming in particular, but will try to complete it anyway.
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11-07-12, 02:56 AM   #3
Phanx
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Your survey really needs some work... there are many questions repeated on the very next page, there are tons of questions that are essentially asking the same thing as a previous question in another words -- how many times do you need me to say I don't hit people when I get angry? -- and there are even whole pages (like the "group equality" page) that could be condensed into a single question without losing anything.

Also, the vast majority of the questions seem completely unrelated to online gaming or even online interactions in general. It feels like a badly written and mind-numbingly long version of those annoying "personality surveys" that are usually associated with online job applications or "which <insert franchise here> character are you?" quizzes.

And do you really need to ask every question twice? My WoW characters aren't separate individuals with their own personalities. They're just extensions of myself with the ability to run around in a virtual world; I don't really view my characters as being any different from my clothes. A simple "do you feel that your avatar has its own personality" question before asking all the same questions would be nice for the majority of players who aren't role-playing their characters.

Finally, the "check/write X if you are paying attention" questions seem really condescending. Nobody is being forced to take your survey, and nobody is expecting to get anything out of taking your survey, so chances are people are doing it to help you out, and are not just clicking randomly. Maybe if you spent a little time streamlining the dozens of disorganized and repetitive questions, you wouldn't feel like you needed to make sure people weren't nodding off every few pages.

I didn't enter my email address at the end, because I'm not entirely convinced this is a legitimate school project and not some random purposeless spam, but I did complete the survey on the off chance it is a real thing.
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11-10-12, 01:51 PM   #4
Farmbuyer
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The "student" never logged in again after dumping his/her original post. I'm guessing this isn't a scientific survey as much as it is "I've already formed my opinions and drawn my conclusions, and now I need to make it look like there's real data backing them up".
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11-10-12, 05:36 PM   #5
Phanx
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Probably. Based on the questions, I'd have to assume that (s)he is of the opinion that all online gamers are really insecure, have no attention span, and have no control over their anger or other emotions.
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11-10-12, 07:56 PM   #6
Vlad
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Survey is deleted, darn, wanted to do it and ace it! :P
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