participants for interviews needed

[GuliaMCR]

Hey everyone! I am doing research about virtual consumption and looking for participants for interviews (1 hour informal talk via Microsoft teams). I will pay 8 Euros/9 Dollars in Amazon vouchers for participation. You have to be older than 18, live in the US, UK, Canada, or Europe, and purchase virtual goods for avatars (clothing, accessories) to be used on the Second Life platform. Let me know if you are interested.

[Rowan Amore]

 

[Garnet Psaltery]

What is this research for?  How will you use the real-life information you get from participants?

[Edit] I just saw @Rowan Amore's posting, which gives a bit more detail, but I still want to know what you intend to do with the real-life information (since you want people to talk to you live via Teams).  That's quite a lot of revelation for 8 Euros.  

Edited January 4 by Garnet Psaltery
Added text.

[Persephone Emerald]

Hey, at least they're offering to pay people for their time, though they might have gotten away with paying in linden dollars instead.

[Arielle Popstar]

We need to hunt down this education institution and find out why they keep sending their students here to ask about our virtual consumption.

[GuliaMCR]

It is an academic research that i am doing for my PhD thesis that follows all the privacy standards. All the information that I will receive from you it is the one that you are willing to share:)

 

[Luna Bliss]

I want a bag of cookies too!!

[Love Zhaoying]

16 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

 

Implied, this is the "same" research that was trying to tie "virtual" purchase habits to "real life" purchases for brands, etc.?

As I stated in the previous thread, there's pretty much no connection between the two, because there's no real "brand presence" in SL. IJS.

But good luck to the OP!

[Alwin Alcott]

16 minutes ago, GuliaMCR said:

It is an academic research

that is the worst .. in the world of online stuff SL is a joke when seeing the amount of actual players.

[Rowan Amore]

7 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Implied, this is the "same" research that was trying to tie "virtual" purchase habits to "real life" purchases for brands, etc.?

As I stated in the previous thread, there's pretty much no connection between the two, because there's no real "brand presence" in SL. IJS.

But good luck to the OP!

Well, my reason for posting the previous thread was that it's been over a year since the initial post.  If in that time, the OP hasn't acquired the necessary information from SL, might be time to try somewhere else?

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

Well, my reason for posting the previous thread was that it's been over a year since the initial post.  If in that time, the OP hasn't acquired the necessary information from SL, might be time to try somewhere else?

 

Could be a "yearly project" engaging with students, etc.

[Arielle Popstar]

For some reason I would be more motivated to take part on it if the 8 Euros was paid out in L$. I'm weird.

[GuliaMCR]

I study different topics within virtual consumption topic and use different approaches. Last time it was more about getting insights and I used surveys. This time it is interview. Sorry for taking your time. I see that my post is not perceived very well...

 

 

Edited January 4 by GuliaMCR
typo

[Love Zhaoying]

31 minutes ago, GuliaMCR said:

I study different topics within virtual consumption topic and use different approaches. Last time it was more about getting insights and I used surveys. This time it is interview. Sorry for taking your time. I see that my post is not perceived very well...

 

 

Not at all, thanks for explaining since obviously we remembered you!

Sorry if we came across as rude and/or unsupportive (again).

Edited January 4 by Love Zhaoying

[Silent Mistwalker]

[Kathlen Onyx]

39 minutes ago, GuliaMCR said:

I study different topics within virtual consumption topic and use different approaches. Last time it was more about getting insights and I used surveys. This time it is interview. Sorry for taking your time. I see that my post is not perceived very well...

 

 

Don't be discouraged. Most of the posters like to heckle people for things that they'd never think of doing anyway. 

[Rowan Amore]

51 minutes ago, GuliaMCR said:

I study different topics within virtual consumption topic and use different approaches. Last time it was more about getting insights and I used surveys. This time it is interview. Sorry for taking your time. I see that my post is not perceived very well...

 

 

In the year since your previous post, have you actually been inworld?  Been to shopping events?  Asked people their opinion on a product?   Been an SL consumer?  

Almost every single person using SL has purchased something at some point in time.  The whys are endless.  

[Sid Nagy]

3 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Almost every single person using SL has purchased something at some point in time.  The whys are endless.  

one of the main reasons I bought stuff, is because I didn't want to walk around naked.

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

Well, my reason for posting the previous thread was that it's been over a year since the initial post.  If in that time, the OP hasn't acquired the necessary information from SL, might be time to try somewhere else?

This may be follow up information to take the thesis beyond the initial survey.

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

For some reason I would be more motivated to take part on it if the 8 Euros was paid out in L$. I'm weird.

I don't think this is weird. We regular users are kind of wired to think of lindens as a currency within our unique economic system here, rather than as what their RL market value is. We may think $L 250 isn't bad for a dress or "Dang! that's almost my whole weekly stipend", rather than that's $1 US. My former landlady would be happy if she made $L 500 in tips after working as a SL hostess for 2 hrs, rather than thinking she'd only made $ 1/ hour. 

[Arielle Popstar]

9 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I don't think this is weird. We regular users are kind of wired to think of lindens as a currency within our unique economic system here, rather than as what their RL market value is. We may think $L 250 isn't bad for a dress or "Dang! that's almost my whole weekly stipend", rather than that's $1 US. My former landlady would be happy if she made $L 500 in tips after working as a SL hostess for 2 hrs, rather than thinking she'd only made $ 1/ hour. 

Good point. I wouldn't know what I could do with only 8 euros in Amazon vouchers but i certainly would know what I'd get with the approx equivalent of 2000 L$!

[Paul Hexem]

3 hours ago, GuliaMCR said:

It is an academic research that i am doing for my PhD thesis that follows all the privacy standards

That sounds both uneducated and suspicious.

Edited January 4 by Paul Hexem

[sirhc DeSantis]

I think the poster has been pretty good in explaining (I remember the last one). Research does tend to take time and throw up differing layers and in this case we have no idea of the length of the program the poster is following. Yes there is often the same reaction here but the poster is at least doing it right.

Will have to decline as the use of Teams would reveal my true identity as being Brenda Rodley, Her Grace the Dowager Duchess of Quirm

[JUSTUS Palianta]

The best way to learn about SL people is to live some SL.  Then while people are talking to you, you can ask them some of your interview, without them even realizing it.

SL people are just tired of being used to write papers on, like we are rats in a cage.  💗  Try walking a mile in our shoes if you want to understand us.

If you even come back and read this.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

46 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

That sounds both uneducated and suspicious.

Huh?

28 minutes ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:

The best way to learn about SL people is to live some SL.  Then while people are talking to you, you can ask them some of your interview, without them even realizing it.

Absolutely any researcher talking about Second Life needs to have been at least somewhat active on the platform. If they are not, they are not going to be able to contextualize or even necessarily understand what others say about their experiences.

But purely anecdotal evidence -- "this thing happened to me and a person I know" -- doesn't really count as objective, academically valid data. And to obtain that, researchers, especially in the social sciences, use surveys and interviews. The data from the former, if resulting from a well-designed survey, provides a hopefully objective insight into the "broad picture"; the latter provides more granularity that can be applied to the raw numbers coming from a survey.

The validity of any results from the survey and the interviews is going to depend a great deal upon the size of the samples and their design. An initial caveat for the researcher: the SL forums are not particularly representative of the SL resident population as a whole, so I'd hope that interviews are also being gathered from elsewhere.

39 minutes ago, sirhc DeSantis said:

I think the poster has been pretty good in explaining (I remember the last one). Research does tend to take time and throw up differing layers and in this case we have no idea of the length of the program the poster is following. Yes there is often the same reaction here but the poster is at least doing it right.

Agreed.

I don't know about the particular program this research is enrolled in, but in North America universities a PhD is minimally 4 years long (unless you're an absolute prodigy) and more typically between 5 and 8 years in length. In fact, I seem to recall reading a few years ago that the average length to completion in the US is now about 8 years.

So, yeah, it's a long haul, and there are lots of moving parts.

And for those worried that the researcher will solely be relying upon stuff from the forums -- no PhD thesis, anywhere, gets past first base without an extensive research plan that includes (in the case of the social sciences anyway) both a thorough survey of existing research on the subject and the collection of primary data. And doctoral candidates are continually guided and their work vetted by their supervisors. In many cases, the research plan itself has to be "passed" before further work proceeds.

We're not talking about a term paper whipped off the night before it's due here.

Edited January 4 by Scylla Rhiadra