Dagger-WM's page

Did you see the link in the first post? That IS a crowd source funding option. It's crowdfunding for science experiments basically.

Lots to address here!

So the study itself, the sample size is going to be 50 with the $3300 goal. If we can break that we really want the sample size to be more like 100 or even 200.

I agree that we need to play multiple game systems to really judge the effectiveness of RPGs as a whole, but the problem is we have to start somewhere and unless we can get massive funding, we have to start small. The idea is to do a smaller, less-inclusive study to get SOME results on the table and from there we can expand to much larger studies that do incorporate multiple game systems, more in-depth testing procedures for determine change in ethical sensitivity, and that sort.

In short, the problem is a catch-22 of nobody wanting to support a big study of RPGs without some numbers to back up that there's a reason to, and we can't get those numbers unless we do a study. The compromise is this smaller, less fully-formed study that focuses on just Pathfinder.

I do agree with most criticisms here. Don't get me wrong, most of what y'all say is technically accurate. The problem is working with what we have and with what my advisor believes is most feasible. What they think is most feasible is recruiting undergraduate students of all sorts of educations background with little concern whether they have played RPGs before and to what extent (other than to have it be marked on the results as to which subjects had experience and which didn't).

Hopefully we can get a huge surge in funding and make it to where this can be 200 people sample size, which is consider large enough that it should still give us some good data. At the very least it would give us good enough data that we can start getting more traditional funding from places that want us to replicate the results or refine them. From there we can have a lot more control over the finer details!

Are you using an established benchmark survey for this? Or are you writing your own? Do you have a control group of non roll players you will be surveying on the same interval?

I wrote my own survey with the aid of both my faculty sponsor and the chair of my department. There is a control group that will be used to compare the results against.

Basically, half the participants play games and take surveys, the other half just does the surveys, and at the end we compare and publish the results.

I honestly think that in normal young adult the ethics should be already too strongly formed to be shaken in an appreciable manner by 12 weeks of sporadic play. I would venture the guess that you would need at least a year long exposure in a sensitive age period like 11-18 to actually come up with some data worth the paper it's written on.

Not to add the classic "test skew" of people actually knowing they are having a test.

I'll gladly read the result, anyway.

You know, I'm inclined to lean towards agreeing with you. Except my university requires an ethics course as part of its core curriculum, so that tells me they at least believe there is some value in undergraduates being exposed to this sort of stuff.

I would agree that younger adolescents are more LIKELY to have a bigger or more noticeable effect, but that does not mean that adults would not also have a noticeable effect. Especially if these are 18-20 year old college students.

However, in order to test that sort of experiment on minors, I'd first need something like this to say "here, look, here's reason to suspect that this might be effective on minors!" So a more manageable (read: experiment where I don't have to go through the hoops of testing on minors) is more feasible for getting that initial data.

I have had LOTS of discussion though about what the results of this study could mean for one day having RPGs in middle schools and high schools as part of an ethics-based curriculum.

I am a graduate student at Texas State University and as a part of my Masters of Applied Philosophy and Ethics program I am running a case study over how effective playing Pathfinder can be at teaching and reinforcing ethics!

Here is my campaign for the study.

The study is really quite simple: Participants play Pathfinder for 12 weeks. They take surveys at the beginning, middle, and end of the study testing their ethical sensitivity and at the end of the study we compare the results of those who played Pathfinder to a control group who did not! This should give us a definite indication of whether playing RPGs helps strengthen or develop ethical decision making or sensitivity.

If this interests you, please feel free to ask me more about the study, or check out that webpage to see how you can help us be more successful! And PLEASE feel free to chime in if you have any suggestions or advice! This is a fascinating field of study for me and I absolutely love that I'm getting to combine two of my biggest passions into one awesome project.