University Research on America's Army

[Veulenaar 10]

Hello gamers and America's Army enthusiasts,

We are currently performing a study on different aspects of America's Army (2.8.5 and 3.0), and this study requires your participation. The study is a cooperation between two universities in Belgium: the University of Antwerp and the University of Leuven.

A lot of researchers have investigated the computergame America's Army, but none have taken into account the opinions and attitudes of actual players. We believe that this is absolutely necessary if we want to get a good idea of the impact of America's Army. It would be very important for us, and for the gaming community, if you could complete the online survey we have made (see link below). Your goodwill and cooperation are highly appreciated already!

link -> http://soc.kuleuven.be/limesurveytest/index.php?sid=73729〈=en

If you have any further questions regarding our study, you can always reply in this thread.

The survey is 100% anonymous. The answers you provide will not be used beyond this study.

Thank you very much in advance.

Edited April 4, 2011 by Veulenaar

[Tonci87 163]

Well you know that this Forum is not about Americas Army, but about Armed Assault.....

[soul_assassin 1723]

Fail....

[Zipper5 74]

Well you know that this Forum is not about Americas Army, but about Armed Assault.....

Hence why it's posted in offtopic? ;)

[Veulenaar 10]

After deliberation with Zipper this looked like the right section (OffTopic) to post this survey. I will check this topic each day, to answer any questions concerning the survey.

[mr burns 131]

War is an expression of political disagreement.

errrr .... Clausewitz much very?

What is your estimation of the chance that a country from the Middle East will go to war with a Western Country ranging from zero to one-hundred percent?

In which timespan? Next 1000 years, sure.

Lot´s of mumbo jumbo & bs questions imho, many a time asking almost the same in a slightly different way. Halfway through i thought it was company questionaire to get user opinions..

[ACPL Jon 68]

I liked it. A little biased but cool, it's kinda in the Americas Army spirit, should product a nice info about AA gamers... I think it would be good to make similiar, less biased, survey for every military-oriented games.

many time asking almost the same in a slightly different way.

It's a good tactic if You want to see how much people are vulnerable to propaganda & manipulation. And that's what AA is, half the way - a propaganda machine. Also shows how people suck at text analysis.

When and where I can read about the results?

[*LK1* 10]

which is the point of this research, specifically.

[Daniel 0]

Form submitted, along with a little constructive criticism. Some interesting questions. I don't see the issue.

[JdB 151]

I feel that some of the questions are poorly formulated, like this one:

"My opponents aren't real people."

Are you asking whether I consider the avatar to be a real person (an unhealthy obsession with the game), or are you asking whether I think I would just as easily kill the avatar of another player as I would a real person (becoming desensitized to violence by playing computer games)?

I could even think you were asking me whether I play singleplayer (vs the computer) or multiplayer (vs other people over a network).

[maturin 12]

I think the thing that struck me most about America's Army was how few Americans there were.

[jblackrupert 14]

The fact that Armerica's Army is used as a recruitment tool scares the heck out of me.

[Veulenaar 10]

I feel that some of the questions are poorly formulated, like this one:

"My opponents aren't real people."

This is already noted by other participants. We will take this in consideration when we will analyze data. The problem is you could also use the word 'enemy' but then you have the same issues. There is always a need for more explanation, but as you can imagine with online questionnaires many persons quit filling it in because it is too long. So giving extra information is very hard. We have to make some hard choices concerning certain wordings in the survey.

This question is based on the construct 'identification', with a bunch of literature that precedes it.

A little biased but cool

In which way is it biased? Because we did our very best to keep it neutral in any way. That's why have the cooperation with the University of Antwerp.I do understand that political questions immediately affect the 'biased-or-not' question. But it is very important for our research. So we had to ask that.

[Baff1 0]

In which way is it biased?

I'll give you a little example.

In my country the bulk of all terrorists are Catholic and local.

Our military is routinely deployed in every theatre on the planet.

In my lifetime they have fought members of every religion on every contintent.

But all this census cares about are Muslims and the Middle East.

The questions where I am asked to give a % for how evil muslims are and how likely a middle eastern country is to go to war with my country are both vacuous and leading.

What is more likely than a middle eastern country going to war with a western country, is a western country going to war with a middle eastern country in my opinion.

Middle eastern countries are all desperately trying to avoid wars with us and consistenly have been since Roman times.

But I saw no question asking "what % of westerners do I believe are hostile towards muslims?"

Edited April 5, 2011 by Baff1

[ACPL Jon 68]

I'll give you a little example.

In my country the bulk of all terrorists are Catholic and local.

Our military is routinely deployed in every theatre on the planet.

In my lifetime they have fought members of every religion on every contintent.

But all this census cares about are Muslims and the Middle East.

The questions where I am asked to give a % for how evil muslims are and how likely a middle eastern country is to go to war with my country are both vacuous and leading.

What is more likely than a middle eastern country going to war with a western country, is a western country going to war with a middle eastern country in my opinion.

Middle eastern countries are all desperately trying to avoid wars with us and consistenly have been since Roman times.

But I saw no question asking "what % of westerners do I believe are hostile towards muslims?"

Damn, well said!

[Veulenaar 10]

Indeed and it's understandable that you think we are targeting muslims. Let's explain this. As a researcher you always try to use scales (with questions) that have proven their validity. The scale (with questions about muslims/middle east) is taken out of a previous research that is very highly regarded. Then you still have to know that we made the questions less explicit because we found the original scale too offensive. You can imagine what questions were in the original. That's why we have chosen for the 0-100 percentage. You can always give 0 percent if you think it is wrong.

A second remark, you always have to choose when you create an online survey. If we again had to ask every question for a different religion. Than we had some 2 pages extra and our questionnaire was already quite long in comparison with other examples. As a researcher you would like to ask them a whole lot more, but it just is not possible. Space does not let you.

A third remark, this is the first research that takes the player's attitudes and opinions into account. We knew even before we started that it would not be perfect (I never saw a perfect questionnaire I think), because we do not have any examples in this area. Mostly there is qualitative research through text analysis and such. But that is not what we wanted to do.

By the way: Bafff which country you from?

[whisper 0]

UK, ever heard of IRA?

[Veulenaar 10]

Surely heard of them, but they are not that active since 1995 if I am not mistaken (except some splinter groups). If you are talking about the Irish Republican Army that is.

[whisper 0]

Well, he's from UK if I'm not mistaken either :) And I think they got far more hurt from Catholic people than from any other religion, even if today's statistics ain't showing that anymore. He has a point, if you ask me, and a pretty big one. I've yet to see a "muslim plane", to take your example further, fly over my country and drop bombs

[Tonci87 163]

I would like to know who paid for this Survey!

[Veulenaar 10]

Nobody I am a doing my last year of higher education (University in this case), and in our last year you have to perform your own research on a subject you choose voluntarily. You always get one promotor that guides you with it, this is prof. Ribbens (University of Leuven). We did the cooperation with University of Antwerp because we even wanted to make the survey more neutral. Check previous comments why it could be you think there is some bias in it.

Thanks for the support and feedback already ;)

[jblackrupert 14]

I've yet to see a "muslim plane", to take your example further, fly over my country and drop bombs

The "bombs" are dropping in maternity wards all over Europe.

[Tonci87 163]

Nobody I am a doing my last year of higher education (University in this case), and in our last year you have to perform your own research on a subject you choose voluntarily. You always get one promotor that guides you with it, this is prof. Ribbens (University of Leuven). We did the cooperation with University of Antwerp because we even wanted to make the survey more neutral. Check previous comments why it could be you think there is some bias in it.

Thanks for the support and feedback already ;)

Well then you definately deserve some support.

But what let you choose AA? What is your intention on this survey? What do you want to prove with it?

[Veulenaar 10]

Because it is/was unseen how succesful a propagandic tool as America's Army could be. A game produced by the U.S. Army that had success over the whole world, without the intention. Our goal is to see which opinions and attitudes are held by players of the game. In relation to other variables, as you can conclude from the survey.

Even now there is still commotion among (ex-) players to keep playing the old version 2.8.5. It raises questions, how a game like America's Army could still evoke such an engagement.

[ACPL Jon 68]

That's not really interesting.

People still play old Day Of Defeat (like I do) or old Counter-Strike, it's normal people play older games especially if they were better then their newer editions;

What's really interesting is how brainwashed US-Army-lovin' people can be, yet, how well set-up for USA-runs-the-world propaganda.