Looking for help with a non-profit project

[Pia-Orcs]

Hello everyone,

Please help support a non-profit project of the German University of Duesseldorf!

With help of the German gamer community the University of Duesseldorf has succeeded in developing a diagnostic questionnaire which does not confuse engaged MMORPG players with so-called “addicts”. This is an important opportunity to break the stereotype of the “pathological gamer”!

After this success, we are striving to expand the project by translating our questionnaire in order to be able to provide standardized diagnostics not only nationwide, but on an international level. Please help us realize our “25QUESTions Project” by filling out our short questionnaire on

http://www.pia-orcs.de/25questions/

and by doing this, participate in eliminating the pathologization of engaged players!

This is NOT a survey: The data will solely be used in order to evaluate the characteristics of our questionnaire, which is later going to be used in clinics. At this point, the questionnaire cannot yet determine whether somebody is addicted to MMORPGs or not.

Here you can get an overview of the (good ) characteristics of our German questionnaire (in English):

http://www.piaorcs.uni-duesseldorf.de/2 ... esults.pdf

You can contact me through: sabine.breuing at uni-duesseldorf.de ,
for example, if you have any questions about our project, or if you are interested in supporting us by translating our questionnaire into another foreign language…

Thank you very much for your assistance!

Sabine

PS: Thanks to the moderators for giving me the opportunity to post this.

[cin]

is anyone doing this?

takes about 5 minutes to do the questionnaire.

[Miguez]

I did it.

[SidiousX]

I don't play any games at all anymore so all the questions arent really related to me...

[Fresh]

Too young.

[poehalcho]

done...
not really seeing how this is going to help though -__-'
addiction is one thing, it's a whole different case when you've got nothing to do all day...

[woutR]

I filled it in, really wonder what they can really prove with these answers.

[cpinney]

done...
not really seeing how this is going to help though -__-'
addiction is one thing, it's a whole different case when you've got nothing to do all day...

thats the point of it, to often when you take a survey if you score high it automatically assumes your "addicted" were this one is trying to distinguish between "addicted" and simply bored and a hobby as you stated.

[Swindler]

dodododododone.

[Squirt]

Too young.

There are age limits on the internet?

Huh you learn something new everyday.

[Pia-Orcs]

Thanks everyone for your help!

I filled it in, really wonder what they can really prove with these answers.

With these answers we are testing the quality of the English translation of our questionnaire. After collecting the data, a statistical analysis is going to show whether these questions have a high discriminatory power (that is to say, if they are able to distinguish engaged players from so-called "addicts") or not. For the German version we tested multiple questions and then only kept the ones with the highest discriminatory power. These are the ones we translated. Sometimes people tell me "But question xy doesn't make any sense" but statistically, these items proved to be the best. If it had shown in the evaluation that the color of someone's shoes can statistically distinguish between excessive and non-excessive players (no matter for what reason), the questionnaire would now contain a question about the color of your shoes.

If the questionnaire proves to be good, we will ask patients in clinics who are self-reported "addicts" to complete our questionnaire in order to determine a statistically sound cut-off-score that we can use to determine whether somebody is an overly excessive player or not. Then our questionnaire will be able to make a diagnosis. Of course I could say, ok, so if someone reaches a score of x points, I regard him as addicted. But this would be highly subjective and not very scientific.

And once our questionnaire is able to make a diagnosis, we will distribute it so clinicians or worried gamers can use it (it will be freely available). At this point, there are no standardized diagnostic criteria which could professionally separate excessive from non-excessive gamers. So we hope to improve the situation for those who are really affected and at the same time correct the probable overestimation of affected players. That's basically it.

Too young.

Actually it even works when you claim to have been born in 2010.

[Fresh]

I just don't wanna lie.

[Crowley]

Did it.

[BloodyBlade]

done.

[Heosphoros]

I already know I'm an addict =/