Want to participate on an interview for a master thesis about twinkers and norms?

[Laurasia]

The mere fact that you would think people twinking variate from any other gamer, is a puzzle to me. We're not a specific breed or race. Why do some people play soccer, others handball - third football? One might say why do they choose to do sports - but does any specific sport really matter?

There really isn't anything special about us, most of us probably play other video games and/or endgame as well...

Quite puzzled indeed.

I personally find it interesting the way that twinks in almost all brackets migrated to certain battlegroups in order to survive after the xp-off patch, when games in most battlegroups died.

 

[Lindis Marie Gundersen]

True true. So how exactly does interviewing 3 people, of which will probably not represent the majority of the community, help you determine an accurate difference between "us" and "others"? Speaking of which, who is the "others", so called control group? What are we even being compared to... I honestly fail to see how this is going to give any useful results at best :/

This is a qualitative study, which means that the data won't be able to represent the majority of the community in the same way as quantitative studies do, but it will be more in depth and can also be used as a base for further studies. Control groups are not very common in qualitative studies, and though one could use them, that would be way too much work for a master thesis. I'm interested in social norms in virtual worlds, and as I can't cover all the ground, I'll cover some. So I have chosen to narrow it down to twinks in World of Warcraft as I find that group strongly understudied and very interesting. I'm interviewing 3 now, but would like to do a few more interviews later on, so my thesis will be based on more than three, but still not very representable in a quantitative point of view. As I don't know anything about the data I'll get, it is hard to say what theoretical context I will put them in, which is why I'm only doing three interviews for now. My thought now is to put them in the context of research on the real world and see if I can draw parallels to show how norms in a virtual world can say something about the norms in the real world. But I'm open for the possibility that the data will take me in a different dirrection.

 

[lindenkron]

This is a qualitative study, which means that the data won't be able to represent the majority of the community in the same way as quantitative studies do, but it will be more in depth and can also be used as a base for further studies. Control groups are not very common in qualitative studies, and though one could use them, that would be way too much work for a master thesis. I'm interested in social norms in virtual worlds, and as I can't cover all the ground, I'll cover some. So I have chosen to narrow it down to twinks in World of Warcraft as I find that group strongly understudied and very interesting. I'm interviewing 3 now, but would like to do a few more interviews later on, so my thesis will be based on more than three, but still not very representable in a quantitative point of view. As I don't know anything about the data I'll get, it is hard to say what theoretical context I will put them in, which is why I'm only doing three interviews for now. My thought now is to put them in the context of research on the real world and see if I can draw parallels to show how norms in a virtual world can say something about the norms in the real world. But I'm open for the possibility that the data will take me in a different dirrection.

Ye, that was my concern. Seeing as you probably don't know the community - drawing studies of the "norm" based on three individuals (I see you agree, stating it's a qualitative study) would almost guaranteed give a false picture seeing there's a large diversity within this so called 'group'. I myself throughout 7-8 (honestly lost track by now) years of twinking have met countless of different individuals with little to nothing in common but their enjoyment of this small niche we call twinking.

But never the less, I wish you good luck with your thesis and what ever you may dig up

-lindenkron

 

[Lindis Marie Gundersen]

Ye, that was my concern. Seeing as you probably don't know the community - drawing studies of the "norm" based on three individuals (I see you agree, stating it's a qualitative study) would almost guaranteed give a false picture seeing there's a large diversity within this so called 'group'. I myself throughout 7-8 (honestly lost track by now) years of twinking have met countless of different individuals with little to nothing in common but their enjoyment of this small niche we call twinking.

But never the less, I wish you good luck with your thesis and what ever you may dig up

-lindenkron

Thank you so much for your concern and for enlightening me about that. I'll take that in consideration