Help me with my Research Paper: Survey #2B

[FireLance]

Well, I think that the fact that this is an English language messageboard primarily frequented by posters from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom may have skewed the "Race" breakdown.

And as previously noted by The Thayan Menace, the fact that most posters on the site have reliable computer access may skew the replies towards more employment and higher income. This in turn may also correlate with higher age, living by yourself or with a significant other, and being in a relationship.

 

[FireLance]

Link?

Here. If you have answered this poll (#2B), please click on the link if you have not responded to the other (#2A) yet. As at this posting, there are about four times as many replies to this poll as there are to the other one.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Add another vote for option C in the last question...

At work I have a Star Wars calander. My work computer currently has the WotC Draconomican wallpaper. They know I am a sci-fi fan and I have had gamer discussions with a couple of co-workers. I don't hide the fact that I'm a gamer but I don't shove in the faces of others either (buy wearing really "odd t-shirts" or the like).

If there had been an option for "Doesn't flaunt it, doesn't hide it" I would have chosen that one.

I realise you may have not had that option for a reason, but most of my current group would fall into that category.

 

[MonsterMash]

A weakness is the age ranges - you actually have overlapping ranges, it should be:
0-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50+
As a 40 year old I could legitimately have selected two age ranges in the poll.

 

[RatPunk]

A weakness is the age ranges - you actually have overlapping ranges, it should be:
0-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50+
As a 40 year old I could legitimately have selected two age ranges in the poll.

As a 40 year old, I did mark both ranges...

 

[Piratecat]

You will have made "significant progress" with this, even if it lends skewed results. You may not, however, find what you set out to. What you are collecting is a highly non-randomized sampling of voluntary responses, and you should declare as much in your paper.

An excellent point. As long as you acknowledge and discuss potential data skewing, thus specifically identifying weaknesses of the survey, you'll demonstrate that you know what you're talking about.

Neat project!

 

[Joshua Randall]

Just popping in to say that despite my criticism I do think this is a worthwhile project. And to echo what others have said -- as long as you acknowledge the limitations of your data collection, you should be fine. (There is no such thing as 100% clean data.)

I hope I didn't sound too harsh earlier. If so, I apologize.

 

[wingsandsword]

Exactly what kind of person is going to freely admit that they have mental illness and/or poor hygiene?

I know several gamers with diagnosed mental disorders: Attention Deficit Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Aspergers Syndrome, and Bipolar Disorder, and they're all pretty open about talking about them. They may not flaunt it, but they won't hide it if it's relevant to the conversation, so I would see them answering as such on a poll if they were taking part in the poll.

As for hygiene, yeah, I've known some gamers with truly atrocious hygiene, but not that they would admit it.

 

[fusangite]

As in your other poll, in sections where there were more than one possible answer a gave between 1 and (total - 1) answers, except for the "hides"/"flaunts" question where I said both -- because I do both! (EDIT: because of my superior social skills.)

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Exactly what kind of person is going to freely admit that they have mental illness
-Samir

They would have to be crazy to admit they have a mental illness...

wait...

that would work then.

I have ADD, I am choosing to qualify that as a "mental illness", so I answered yes.