Overall, as my report demonstrates I have discovered a lot of interesting aspects of my topic which was internet and gaming. Most importantly I found that internet gaming is successful due to the interaction between human players in contrast to the single player experience competing against computer artificial intelligence.
To begin my research I acquired a lot of secondary research from the internet search engines including Google, Yahoo and Bing, as well as several books in my school library. My sources were mostly found through different internet searches and articles on websites about internet gaming. I found these sources by searching for broad terms such as “internet gaming” in different search engines, including an unpersonalised Google search. I then narrowed this down with more refined terms such as “how has the internet changed gaming”. The reliability of my secondary research sources differed and ranged from reliable sources such as a university research paper on gaming habits, through to less objective sources such as personal blogs. Assessing reliability is difficult but when I saw an author, such as the author of the university paper, I then Googled the author’s name and established that they had written a number of other published documents. Anonymous sources were the easiest to discredit. I used these secondary sources to cross-reference my primary research and either prove or disprove my findings.
I think that I had just enough secondary research, so that nearly everything was used at some point in my report, but not too much that it was a waste of time obtaining it. If I had more time, one of the main things I would do is to get more secondary research from sources such as books instead of the internet. This is because the book’s authors’ qualifications were determinable where as some of the internet sources were anonymous. There was a lack of published books about my topic because it is quite specific and there was very little information in my school’s library about it.
To obtain my primary research I used three different research techniques; a questionnaire, a focus group and an interview. Each of these has their own benefits and disadvantages. I selected my subjects for my primary research from a sample of my media colleagues. This was mainly because they were available and consisted of both males and females. Because I used this same relatively small sample for all my research techniques this could have restricted my findings. If I had more time I would have liked to have used a bigger sample and invited different age groups to participate.
Obtaining my secondary research first was helpful because it assisted me in creating my questionnaire, interview and focus group questions. This allowed me to cross-reference easily as I knew both my secondary research and my primary research were relevant.
I distributed my questionnaire by printing out hard copies and physically handing them to my subjects. I chose this method because I wanted them to complete the questionnaire immediately in the time available in class. I felt that had I distributed the questionnaire via the internet I would have a lower response rate because some of the subjects might have forgotten about it or become too busy to complete it. I could have used a combination of both these methods to distribute my questionnaire, however I discounted this as I would have then had to collate the findings from two different medium. This would have taken longer and left me with less time to carry out the other research techniques.
Due to the types of questions that I used in my questionnaire, this technique gathered a lot of quantitative data. This resulted in solid facts that I then cross-referenced with my secondary research sources.
During the course of my focus group, I observed the members of the sample group as they discussed the various questions. From this I collected information showing the general trends and ideas being discussed.
My interview was conducted with a single subject selected from the sample. Firstly I devised my questions. The opening questions were designed to result in quantitative data to identify the subject’s demographics. I then devised a series of open ended questions which would result in qualitative responses. If I was going to carry out this research again I would have interviewed more subjects. This is because I thought the quality of the answers from my one subject was extremely high and interesting. Having other subject’s responses would have added to my findings.
The results from my focus group and interview were very helpful in assessing the responses obtained from my questionnaire. This is because if some of the responses obtained from my questionnaire were vastly different from the general trends and ideas revealed by the focus group members, it would have led me to question the validity of one of my research techniques.
The quantitative data gathered assisted me in determining the demographics of my subjects such as genre, popular gaming consoles and gender. I analysed my findings to determine the percentage out of the total sample and presented my findings as pie charts.
The qualitative data was then analysed to determine the relationship and differences between genre, gender and the gaming consoles in use. Due to the nature of these responses, I obtained more insight in to the topic. I was very objective when conducting my research. This was so that I did not influence the responses given in any way. As I often play internet games myself, I found it hard to be completely objective especially when listening to the focus group. Regardless of whether my subjects gave opinions I agreed with or not, I made sure that my further questioning did not reveal my own opinions on the topic.
After having collated my findings and delivering my report to the class, I can see that carrying out thorough research was important and enabled me to present a credible argument. In fact having carried out three different primary research techniques, in addition to the secondary research I obtained, I believe that the more research conducted, the stronger the findings would be. Equally important is the objectivity of the person conducting the research. It made me realise that objectivity can have a lot of impact, not only on the findings themselves, but also on the credibility of those findings.
