Discussion

Overall then there was evidence that the CCPIGv1 was able to make a clear distinction between competitive and cooperative game play. The competitive section also seemed reasonably interpreted as two components of the awareness of other humans (previously called Behavioural Involvement & Theory of Mind) and actual engagement, the sensations and feelings of competitive play. In contrast, the cooperative section seemed to be measuring more holistic sensation, the overall cooperative experience of social engagement.

The CCPIGv1.1 (found in full in Appendix 7.2.11) the modules with unwieldy titles were re-named: Final structure CCPIGv1.1

Section 1: Competitive Module 1.1: Awareness

Module 1.2: Engagement Section 2: Cooperative

Module 2.1: Team Identification Module 2.2: Social Action Module 2.3: Motivation Module 2.4: Team Value

Section 1 is designed to measure ‘competitive social presence’, the social presence felt towards one’s opponents in a digital game. Module 1.1 measures competitive involvement, how the interplay between the player and their opponents affected the respondent’s thoughts and actions. The module is phrased in a fairly reflective way, it aims to measure the extent to which a respondent is using the Theory of Mind, and how aware they were of the behavioural and cognitive interplay between them and their opponent(s). Module 1.2 measures competitive engagement, and the sensations of competitive play with another human. Section 2 is designed to measure ‘cooperative social presence’, the social presence felt towards team-mates in cooperative digital games. As the PCA results from this study suggested this section functioned as a single component, and a number of concepts cut across the section, including Theory of Mind, and social joint commitments[Clark, 2006].

4.6

Chapter Summary

Questionnaire Development

This chapter documented the development of the Competitive and Cooperative Presence in Gaming (CCPIG) questionnaire, a measure for social presence specifically designed for use in team-based digi- tal games. The development refined a sprawling list of 116 items into a 39 item tool which successfully measures the two distinct concepts of competitive and cooperative social presence. The development also helped hone the online community survey methodology, a method of deploying a questionnaire to gain both quantitative data, and qualitative user feedback to contextualize the results. Questionnaires are useful for gathering quantitative data and can reveal much about user experience, but it a pragmatic view of the data must be taken to gain valuable insights. In complex scenarios such as those found in team-based online games it is beneficial to combine the results of a questionnaire with observations of gameplay, and a knowledge of the games and game communities involved in the studies.

Social Presence

The studies in this chapter not only contributed to the development of the CCPIG, but enlightened more of the nature of social presence, and the user perceptions of social presence in team-based digital games. The development of the questionnaire confirmed that the experiential vignettes of the previous chapter were revealing reliable insights into social presence in team-based digital games. The items of the questionnaire were based upon the results of the vignettes, and the these coherence and reliability of these items shows that the results were valid. The CCPIG was further validated in Chapter 5 and the single factor structure of the cooperative section was rearranged and split into two factors following a principal component analysis with a larger data set.

Further Work

While the development of the CCPIG could be considered successful, in that it produced a functioning questionnaire, the structure of the cooperative section was still of some concern. It was expected that the cooperative section would split into a number of other factors, and the results which suggested it was in fact one single factor made the section seem large and ungainly compared to the competitive section. Therefore, rather than simply accept the results of the PCA analysis in this chapter, further factor analysis was be conducted using the far larger dataset gathered for the team trust study in the following chapter. This analysis would confirm that the cooperative section was not one single factor, but could be scored as two conceptually coherent factors, providing a far more useful and fine grain view of cooperative social presence in team-based games. The user feedback from the various studies also suggested a number of elements of gameplay context which might affect levels of social presence. Respondents suggested that playing with friends or strangers greatly affects the levels of social presence in team-based games, a concept which would be investigated in the final study of this thesis.

Chapter 5

Team Trust & Social Presence

5.1

Introduction

Following the development of the CCPIG questionnaire there existed a validated and suitable measure for social presence in team-based digital games, and so research into the core elements of social presence could continue. A meeting was conducted with the industry supervisor to discuss the outcomes from the previous Chapter and the direction of future research. The outcome of this discussion was that a related issue to social presence, team trust, was highly relevant but not yet well understood in relation to training in virtual environments, To provide an overview of the topic a literature review was conducted to establish insights into team trust in team-based virtual environments. During the course of reviewing the team trust literature there appeared to be a some interesting overlap between the core elements of team trust and cooperative social presence.

To investigate the conceptual crossover between the two concepts a user study was conducted, gathering data using the online community survey methodology with an online questionnaire consisting of the CCPIG, an established trust scale, and a number of other items measuring reported elements of trust. The study provided an opportunity to test the CCPIG on a larger scale, gain a better understanding of both social presence and team trust, and to explore the interplay between these concepts and a number of contextual gameplay elements. The data gathering was a success, attracting 821 respondents from across 8 difference gaming communities. The results of the study not only enlighten the similarities and differences between trust and cooperative social presence, but help give a greater understanding to the various antecedents, and variables which affect team trust and social presence in team-based digital games. The results of the literature review and subsequent investigation are reported in this Chapter.