For the October edition of NMC VWEx (Virtual World Explorer’s) we will be visiting the University of Washington’s Psychological Research Suites in Second Life. Join us on Wednesday October 7th at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (check local time).
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching%2016/211/181/23
This project is an exciting opportunity to see real world psychological experiments using virtual reality as a data collection tool. The virtual incarnation of the project aimed to recreate a variety of real life work environments which were scripted to easily change to new environments with a different array of stereotypical or nonstereotypical elements. The main goal of the project was to create an environment in which researchers could monitor human behavior through avatars within a virtual environment. You can see our full case study here.
At the heart, the research goal for University of Washington was to explore the traditional computer science/ technology workplace and classroom and how this environment impacted a female’s perspective on her place within it. In her recent article on the project, Lisa Grossman summed up the work that Professor Sapna Cheryan is undertaking:
“Many observers have lamented the lack of women in science, but the climate in computer science is worse than almost anywhere else. Women earned about half of the bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering in 2006 (the last year for which the National Science Foundation has data), but only 20 percent of the degrees in computer science. That figure is dropping.
Cheryan’s research offers an explanation: Women don’t identify with the archetypal image of computer scientists. Cheryan’s subjects describe this image as “nerdy, techie, stay up late coding, energy drinks, no social life.… They don’t frequently take showers.†The geek room conjures this picture in our minds, Cheryan says, based only on the stuff we find lying around.” (full article)
The virtual version of this project followed the same archetype as the real world research sets by using a very specifically modelled set of stereotypical and nonsterotypcial elements.
Beyond the research goals and study at hand, NMC Virtual Worlds also had an opportunity to create an innovative new tool for research using virtual reality with the use of holodeck style rezzing. This allowed the researchers to conduct the observation with little to no Second Life experience, and perhaps even more importantly given the subject of the research, it allowed the study participants to use the space without knowing that they were in a virtual world environment like Second Life let alone having experience with it.
We hope that you will join us and add to the discussion research in virtual worlds!
Also, please keep in mind the following helpful tips:
- You’ll need a Second Life avatar account to join us. If you do not have one already, please feel free to use our customized registration portal at http://sl.nmc.org/join/. Once you register, you’ll log in at our NMC Orientation sim which will have lots of information to get you started.
- Make sure that you have voice chat enabled and are able to hear before the event starts. Voice will be the preferred method for our speakers, though you are more than welcome to discuss and ask questions directly in the chat channel. If you are new to SL voice, please see these handy guides to get you started.
- Be an early bird! The expedition “sets sail” promptly at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (check local time) and we’d hate to have anyone miss the boat due to avoidable technical issues.
- Share your photos! If you are planning to take pictures, tag them in flickr with “VWEx” so that we can all find them easily!
- It is a shame to end the discussion simply because time runs out! Please feel free to continue sharing, learning, and teaching via the comments on this blog entry and the follow-up summary, in case you miss the session.