Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am going to do a project to see if winning is correlated with fun. I am going to use video games as my topic. Im wondering how I should get started on my research. What kind of things to I need to be researching? I just need to be pointed in the right direction. i plan to to surveys on volunteers who will play a game i have chosen. They will have to play a different difficulty levels. i will try to find out which group of people had the most fun. I have to do my research in class.

Hi Zebo,

This is a really unique idea for a science fair project! And, it will be a challenge to do a project on this topic. Here are some suggestions for getting started:

First, read through the steps of doing a science fair project on the science buddies website:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml

Fist, you need to ask a question that you can answer with an experiment. What is your question?

Next, you need to do background research. Scientists always want to start with the information that has been learned before on a topic, and then design an experiment that will answer new questions. For most science fair projects, there are hundreds of scientific references, but it’s very difficult to search for scientific articles on fun. I found just one reference, which is a table of contents for a PhD thesis on the topic of making the internet more fun. Unfortunately, the details on any experimental protocols are not included in the link. The useful information here is the fact that someone actually got a PhD on studying fun, so it apparently is possible to do a scientific study on this topic.

http://www.informatik.umu.se/~colsson/A ... d-text.pdf

Your project will be much better if you can find some references on fun, an expert to interview on the topic, and methods for measuring fun. Ask your school librarian or teacher for help if you can’t find anything on your own.

Next, for your experiment, you need to devise a way to measure fun. Are you going to ask questions after your test subjects have played the game? If, so, you should have a questionnaire with a few questions and think about how you will score the results. It would be best if you could convert answers to a “fun” scale, of 1-10, for example. Or, perhaps you will give the subject the game and then measure the time they play it, and assume that a longer playing time is equal to more fun. I’m sure you can think of a good way to measure fun.

I hope this has given you some ideas for getting started. Good luck and be sure to have lots of fun doing this project!


Donna Hardy

Hi Zebo,

What an interesting and creative project!

Donna gave a very good suggestion: using some sort of number scale for people to rate their fun level. Keep in mind that people will often rate things slightly differently, but if you test the same person multiple times (across the different levels), you can look at whether their ratings went up or down. In this way, each person can serve as his/her own control.

Some other variables to consider as you move forward:
- People do like winning, but not as much if it is TOO easy. If the game is too easy, your players might get bored. Winning a more challenging game can be more rewarding.
- While time spent playing is one way to see how much people like the game, I think it is still important to measure the person's perception of how much fun he/she had. Someone could spend a long time trying to beat the game, and be frustrated; while someone else could beat the game rather quickly, but feel happy because he/she won.
- Different people like different types of games. It looks like you're planning to test multiple people, and that should reduce problems with this variable.

Please keep us posted with your progress. And have fun!

Heather