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Empirical analysis
Written by Moses Silbiger, M.A.
Article in the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice (JITP) - SUNY Press
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Designing Video Games as “Trojan Horses” to Catalyze and Integrate Human Development
By Moses Sillbiger, M.A.
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JITP article's complementary information
Empirical Analysis:
Online survey analysis of 150 people from backgrounds related to video games and human development
Click here to see the survey results.
Click here to see the survey analysys.
Click here to see the open ended responses.
Introduction to survey methodology
Fifth Methodology:
Empirical Analysis Method and Research Design
General observations:
In this research exploration, I made use of a Mixed Methods approach (Creswell & Clark, 2007), which could be also called Integral approach or Integral Methodological Pluralism (Wilber, 2007; Esbjörn-Hargens, 2006) due to the complementary use of multiple and more specific quantitative and qualitative methodologies corresponding to different perspectives of the AQAL Model, a model drawn from the Integral Theory framework (Wilber, 2007, 2000).
Integral Theory is a post disciplinary framework that allows integral practitioners and researchers to cover as much as possible all facets, dimensions and perspectives of any given phenomena; with no ontological or epistemological a priori. It is based on the fact that "reality" is a result of the interdependence and co-arising of various complementary aspects, which are further categorized in the AQAL Model.
I intended to use Empiricism as my fifth methodology, including the method of Empirical survey (click here to see the survey data and results), designed to reveal the connection between the research topic and the objective data associated with specific backgrounds and behaviors of its various participants, reflected by the way they responded and commented to the questions.
The specific research question related to this methodology was: What would two distinct groups of people, specifically related to (1) personal and spiritual development and (2) video games and video game design, have to say about video games being designed to facilitate personal and spiritual development?
The application of this Empirical method (Empirical survey) was very suited to my topic. In my survey, I wanted to explore the data coming from those two potentially distinct groups. By doing that, I intended to cover both ends related to my main topic, which I was initially supposing - based on previous observations - might have distinct values and opinions about the subject. The importance of doing this exploration stemmed from the fact that in order to design video games to facilitate personal and spiritual growth, one would need the contributions and integration of both of those worlds, working together in interdisciplinary ways and aiming for the same cause.The survey form was the same for both groups, in order to facilitate a further data comparison. I envisioned my research topic as an advocate for creating a functional bridge between them, and although there may have many people with one feet in both (such as me and other subjects of my interviews), I considered there might be a significant gap between those two groups related to different worldviews, values, interests, gender, levels of personal growth, age, etc.
In this way, I was not only exploring individual responses from both groups in relation to different aspects of my research, but also comparing both sets of answers in order to see potentially different perspectives belonging to each group. From the results of the survey, I intended to gather significant information that could be used to better understand their current views, bias, predilections and general perceptions about the subject of my research.
This information could be also used to develop new video game designs related to my topic, shortening the gap between the two words and offering features that could not only attract, but be personally and functionally beneficial to both ends. At the same time, I was open to learn more about both worldviews and how they see the main aspects of my topic. From one end, I initially planned to distribute a minimum set of 50 survey forms to people related to the subject of (1) personal and spiritual growth. They were mostly connected to groups related to personal growth and spiritual traditions or communities that I had some access and was/am part of, including friends, peers and teachers from JFK University, Ridwhan school (Diamond Approach), Tao, Tensegrity, Transcendental meditation (TM), Tibetan Dzogchen, Integral Life Practice (Colorado and Bay Area), the Integral Institute and Aliveworld. I also distributed the survey to the Zaadz (Gaia) website and various Facebook groups related to those subjects, and considered the possibility that some people from online video game groups related to Serious Games and others (see next paragraph) would also be associated with the topics of personal and spiritual growth (1). Most of surveys were delivered by email with a link to an online form, and some of them were posted to discussion group boards. I intended to take approximately 1 month to cover all the intended people.
From the other end, I planned to distribute a minimum set of 50 survey forms to people related to the subject of (2) video games and video game design. The people I choose were mainly the attendants of the GDC 2008 (gamers, designers, developers and other attendees), although I also sent to some friends and acquaintances, asking them to redistribute (forward) the email with the link to the survey to their own network. I also distributed the survey to various video game websites and online groups related to Serious
Games and ot
hers (seriousgames.org; gamesforchange.org; gamesforhealth.org; gamecareerguide.com; edugamesblog.wordpress.com) and considered the possibility that some people from the previous group (1) would also be associated with those topics (2). Most of surveys were delivered by email with a link to an online form, and some of them were posted to website and discussion group boards. Only a couple of them were handled directly “offline” at the Game Development Conference (GDC) 2008 in San Francisco, covering the week from February 18th to 22nd, but that did not prove to be an efficient method. I also intended to take approximately 1 month to cover to cover all the intended people.
The main method I used to develop the survey was based on the suggestions in the booklet “A general introduction to the design of questionnaires for survey research” (Burgess, 2001). In order to be able to assemble all my intentions in the ideal 1 to 2 page highly condensed “offline” survey form (which would also reflect in a more concise online form), I had to go through a challenging and time consuming process of brainstorming, decision making and re-editing.
It took me initially 8 hours of intense back and forth between vision, planning and writing. This process clearly reflected Tolbert’s (2004) developmental dynamics of triple loop feedback, involving a constant reassessment of immediate actions (writing), strategic organization (planning) and the meta-intentions of my survey (vision). Once I started to deliver the surveys, I had to change and tweak some of the questions based on experiential and peer based feedback, which took me almost 5 extra hours. I took an additional of 4 hours to convert the survey to the online form, using the online research website surveymonster.com, which I paid a monthly fee. I also took around 1 to 2 hours to do some re-editions based on feedback or responses from participants. This software was pivotal to provide automated efficiency to design, distribution and analysis, which will also help me to collect and analyze the data with much more accessibility by using different features and filters.
In the end, I consider that my original intentions were reasonably manifested in the final survey form, covering the aesthetics and structural parameters needed for a good and clear return of responses. The final version ended up having 11 questions distributed in two “offline” pages (back and forth), which were translated appropriately in the online form. Embedded in the whole underlining structure of the survey was the AQAL model, which I intuitively used to cover as many bases (and methodologies) possible, including cross-covering different Quadrants (questions #1 to #6 plus personal data), Levels (questions #3 to #10), States (questions #5 and #6), Lines (questions #3 to #6), and Types (personal data).
The emphasis was made on the subject of developmental levels since its connection to the main topic of my research. The questions were purposefully chosen to gradually usher the participant to expose their views, opinions and behaviors from a broader (questions #1 to #6) to more focused inquiry of the main questions related to my topic (questions #7 to #10). In the end, I opened the discussion offering a space for general commentaries about the survey and the research topic.
Planning to make the survey more attractive to the participants - based on my own resistance to filling out surveys in general - and willing to give back a symbolic gift as gratitude for their participation, I opted to add a fun “game touch” to it, by offering a sweepstakes for a 1-year subscription (in US) for 2 magazines of their choice related to both groups, plus a $50 gift certificate from the GameStop store. I don’t know what the real effects of adding this offer were, but only half of the participants ended up filling the sweepstakes option. I also believe that most of the ones that didn’t opted for that due to not willing to give their emails, which was required in order to receive the result. By later commenting to a young game designer at GDC 2008 what he would do to make a survey more attractive, he told me emphatically: “make it into a game!” In a way, although not exactly a game in the terms he expressed, I think I ended up intuitively making it at least more “game like" and maybe a little bit more exciting to be undertaken.
In order to make sure everybody would be referring to the same definitions of personal and spiritual growth related to the questions #7 to #11, I found fundamental to add their two main definitions in the introduction of those questions. During the design of the survey, I made an effort (sometimes exhaustive and time consuming) to be aware of using a more conventional and accessible language to cover both subjects of video games and personal/spiritual development; hence not using too much specialized jargon that could result in potential misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
Due to the relative complexity of the subjects, even that strategy did not worked 100%. For example, I opted to add a parenthesis after the word spiritual - e.g.: spiritual (or religious) development – in order to cover a broader range of people that would identify more with religiosity then spirituality. That proved to not be a good move in terms of creating consensual understanding, given the fact that the word “religious” tended to turn off many people, who maybe thought that I was linking a more general definition of “spirituality” to conventional “religion”, which was not exactly the case.
In terms of collecting the results, several interesting and non-accounted situations happened, bringing an exciting learning curve with the probing process of survey distribution. By the first twoweeks of distribution, I had delivered approximately 100 direct emails to group (1) directing to the online link of the survey. The level of response was relatively high, almost 80% of friends and acquaintances responded fairly quickly, although in general I got around 50% of responses (many people from past groups and workshops ended up not replying).
In relation to group (2), I started focusing on the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2008 participants (February 18th to 22nd). In my second day of conference, I delivered only around 7 surveys on paper at the Serious Games Summit, thanks to a pre announcement by the advisors of the Serious Games Summit (Ben Sawyer and Ian Bogost) to meet me at the door at the end of the lecture. From around 300 people in the room, only 7 took the survey, and just 3 people returned the form...
After this initial probing “shock”, I sensed that the participants were really not interested in talking a survey even for 5 minutes, probably due to the fact that they had around 100 lectures to choose in a single day in a very rushed and sometimes crowded environment. Besides that, it seemed to me that the game community as a whole was not very fond of paper surveys, especially "academic" ones. Perceiving that strategy was not so effective, I then changed it the next day into distributing a simple flyer pointing to the online survey link. I have to confess that due to the nature of the topic (personal and spiritual growth), there was almost an “invisible barrier” (or at least that is how I felt) to approach most of the participants while in the corridors or malls. They simple were not interested on that. In order to not force any situation, I decided from then on to focus only on participants that were attending lectures with themes that could be somewhat related to my topic (emotions, storytelling, narrative, writing, conscious design, serious games, alternative conflict resolution, visions for the future, brainstorming, etc.), being aware that my responses could carry a certain “positive” pattern or different bias in relation to the rest of the gaming community. But I realized that, “at lest that then nothing”! I then started to distribute manually around 125 flyers at the doors of some lectures at the GDC 2008 pointing to the online link, and although many people showed some enthusiasm and interest at the time, I ended up not collecting many online responses from there, only around 5, making less than 4 % of responses!
Tracking these poor results about the group (2), I decided again to change the strategy in order to balance the numbers, which ended up being the best and most efficient action I did. After doing some online research, I posted or emailed the main info pointing to the survey link into various online discussion groups and websites related to group (2) - especially related to serious games - which would theoretically access hundreds or thousands of people. From those groups I had the majority of responses in a very short amount of time, from around 90 participants.
Due to the massive (and unexpected) number of responses of group (2), I also had to do the same for group (1) due to the fact that their initial responses ended up being unbalanced towards the group (2). I then posted the info with the link to some extra groups in Facebook - which were not properly discussion groups as I did with group (2) - but would nevertheless at least "theoretically" access hundreds or even thousands of people.
The results of this new move were much lower than from the discussion groups related to group (2) (only around 10 responses). By that time, I had to close the survey due to my deadline, and hence bear a certain unbalance of numbers between groups (1) and (2). However, many people from group (2) also checked the survey option of having “one feet in each” of those groups (1 & 2), represented by a new "group (3)", which ended up bringing a surprising balance to the survey.
Group (1): People related to the subject of personal and spiritual growth
Group (2): People related to the subject of video games and video game design
Group (3): People related to the subjects of groups (1) and (2)
Click here to see the survey results.
Click here to see the survey analysys.
Click here to see the open ended responses.