question about "No Pain Lots of Game" project

[kristinblack]

In doing the project "No Pain, Lots of Game" which measures the ability of playing video games to distract the player from pain, do the video games played by the volunteers need to be the same? For example, can one volunteer play Mario Kart while another plays Halo 4, or is that too much of a variable? We know that it is a variable, but we also know that it's important for the volunteer to be engaged in the game. One game may be more engaging to some and not as much to another.

Thank you

[Snobs3747]

Hello and thanks for the question!

I do think that doing a change in games similar to going from Mario Kart to Halo will be a big variable, because different games have different psychological impacts. I would suggest avoiding this, but if you can't, at least using games that are similar in genre and style (like COD and Halo) would keep the variable smaller.

Let me know if that helps!

[kristinblack]

Thank you for your response. That was my thought too, but at the same time I didn't know if it was the actual game itself that was the key to providing distraction, or if it was enjoying the particular game one was playing. My mother would enjoy Mario Kart, but a 13 year old boy would get much more into Halo. He may not be as distracted playing Mario Kart as he would playing Halo, as he finds Mario Kart boring.

[amyc]

Hi Kristin - I talked with another Expert about your student's project, and I wanted to pass on her feedback so you have it as well as input from other Experts.

You raise an interesting and valid question about variables. You've clearly recognized that there are a number of hidden influencers to the data - one of those is the level of engagement by the player. I'd agree that this is a good variable to keep track of. Adding additional game choices is not necessarily the optimal way of evaluating if engagement also factors in because it, as you already recognized, also adds more variables. You can imagine that the type of game you choose, its pace, the number of cut scenes, how frequently a user inputs, level of complexity, etc. may also influence the outcome. There are a number of ways to get around this, but one fairly simple one is to chose a single game that you feel will have the widest appeal. Then, ask each volunteer to play the game before the pain part of the trial begins and have each volunteer rate the game as engaging or not on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is low (not at all engaged) and 5 is high (extremely engaged). When you analyze the data look at the data as a whole, then see if there are any outliers. Can the outliers be explained by looking at how enagaged vs. unengaged the volunteer reported being by the game? How does game engagement correlate with pain management?