Old farts perhaps (and some young clueless ones), but there is a rich history of collaboration between computer science and psychology. We're not all Luddites. As a grad student in psychology (not associated with this study) who does conduct research with adult video game players, I can certainly comment on basic methodology. I would need to see the actual journal article to make bold pronouncements regarding the specifics, but assuming they are not completely incompetent researchers...
1) It doesn't matter that the study was "only" 4 months. Individually you're right, +/- 4 months on a developmental marker is not a big deal at all. But this was not a change occurring across one or two children, this was across the treatment group. A systematic societal delay, even if it's just 4 months, is worth talking about. Do we need further data? Of course, I'd love to see the follow-up at a time greater than 4 months to see if these kids remain behind the curve. But neither you nor I has collected that data, so the 4 mo data will have to do for now to generate hypotheses regarding longer term effects.
2) You make a valid point regarding a single video game, but I don't believe it is as applicable to a gaming system. As long as there continue to exist good titles that I have not played, my 360 use will not decline any huge amount. I get tired of individual games, not the system itself. I do agree that it would have been nice to compare these random control trials kids to long-term exposure kids, but any results would have had major sampling confounds so it makes sense the researchers did not include them (assuming they didn't -- who knows what was left out of the press article).
As you point out, it would be difficult if not impossible to compare kids with and kids without video games (in a study with random assignment) through high school. But we could look at kids like the ones in this group to see if the gap remains years in the future. In other words, do these kids recover when their peers start playing games, are they permanently behind 4 mos, and what can they do to compensate and/or catch up (i.e., parental monitoring?).
You mention goofing off as a confound. Again, these kids were randomly assigned to PS or no PS. If goofing off caused the decline in learning (and was solely to blame), it would have done so among the no PS kids and there would have been no effect for owning or not owning a PS. That wasn't the case, so the PS caused a decline in learning. Now, it is possible that other activities hurt learning even more (i.e., TV) but that would only mask the effect of owning a PS and make it look smaller than it is.
The biggest thing that worries me is an expectancy or pygmalion effect given that parents presumably knew (or at least guessed) the purpose of the study and teachers may have known about the study (they probably did, since teacher feedback was collected). Most importantly, did teachers know which kids were in each condition? Teacher-student pygmalion effects are fairly well documented. That could totally kill the results. We need the journal article to know whether the teachers were blind to the treatment.
You conclude that the results are invalid without having read the journal article, so having not read it either, I'll say it sounds reasonable to me. Earth-shattering news? Not so much. Important to actually empirically test it (not just another correlation survey study)? Definitely. For every common sense belief we confirm with decent science (so everyone can say "well duh, I knew that!") we disconfirm another.
If this content was already on the disc, didn't they fail at the new EA model? It should have been "DLC" that was free to owners of purchased versions of the game (via an unlock code) and $5 to owners of used copies of the game (via $5 unlock code). To charge everybody for something already on the disc is greedy and lazy. What's amusing is that people would apparently be less outraged if only greed were involved -- that is, if the content were withheld and you had to download it.
One possible explanation: If reporters consciously or subconsciously expect old drivers to be crappy drivers, they may be more likely to report the ages of older drivers.
What program are you in? My classmates in organizational behavior are passionate about the field and many have prior experience. Like anything else I'm sure it all depends.
Not anymore. On my newer Win 7 system (multicore, 8GB RAM) I can happily play Mass Effect 2 with uTorrent, Virtual PC, Outlook, and Firefox active in the background and Alt+Tab around when I feel like it. I could never pull something like that off before. I have no illusions that it's all thanks to Win 7 -- it's the shiny hardware letting me do this -- but Win 7 is in no way impeding.
Gleaning information from very large data sets is very possible, even if gathered in ways that are not strictly rigorous. However, we have to be extremely cautious when we interpret the findings. One of the first things you learn in Stats or Research Methods 101 is that everything becomes significant in a large enough data set. If you have billions of data points and pick any two variables, you should find a statistically significant relationship. It won't mean anything, but someone with an agenda OR someone who doesn't know what they are doing can report it and make it sound real. With great power comes great responsibility!;)
Or not. I don't doubt that your description is accurate for a minority of PhD students, but good luck buying or "hanging in there" to get the one I'm working on. I'm a) researching new enough topics that there's nothing to regurgitate to my professors (I know more about them than the topic; they are invaluable for the methodological and other support skills that are just as important as the raw knowledge) and b) working in a largely independent fashion (as it should be), sans hand holding. Remember though, the entire point of a PhD is to gain world class expertise in a very specific area. I think mixing it's/its a few times in trade is a reasonable sacrifice.
It was nice to be able to tinker with early Apples because there were few alternatives. But as much as I enjoy a good rant against Apple, I fail to see the problem. Buy your kids something else. Either he thinks the latest Apple SHINY is more important than his child's opportunity to get under the hood or he doesn't, and there are (or soon will be) numerous alternatives that are not as tightly locked. Life is about decisions and trade-offs.
You've got it: Networking. Assuming your experience matches the position as well as the other blob of qualified applicants, they're looking for somebody who will "fit" the organization. That's where a contact gives you an edge by telling the hiring manager you play well with others or at minimum that you're not a douchebag.
I've been researching leadership and teams in MMOs for the past few years as part of my grad program in organizational psychology. In particular, I've studied players of EVE Online and looked at leadership behavior among guild/corp leaders as well as their followers. I'm still crunching the latest longitudinal data, but the early results point to average levels of transactional leadership behavior (a more managerial style; exchange based; you do X, I'll reward/punish you with Y) but strikingly low frequency of transformational leadership behavior (charismatic, visionary, empowering leadership; generally considered the "best" style of leadership).
Jargon aside, EVE players do not appear to be learning how to be better leaders by playing EVE Online. MMOs might help build follower skills (complete this quest/work assignment and I'll give you a gold piece/paycheck!) and make you a better wage slave, but I haven't seen empirical evidence that MMOs are teaching anyone how to be a leader in the workplace, as claimed by TFA. There are anecdotal stories from a few guild leaders, sure, but for now only guild leaders of large guilds should even consider putting MMO experience on their resume.
Finally, MMOs aren't going to teach/. readers about technology in the workplace. I am sorry if I crush anyone's dreams.
I'll second that! I've run some survey studies in EVE (and played a few years myself) and the self-report responses almost always top 95% (male), usually close to 98%. If we assume a few guys are lying for whatever reason, or simply hit the wrong button accidentally, it's even higher!
A good boss provides direction, clarity in job tasks, and the resources to get the job done. If the team starts a LAN party whenever the boss leaves the room or are unable to order pizza on their own, the boss might need to stick around. Otherwise they should get out of the way. Part of being a good leader is letting go.
Thanks, I'll have to try this out... but isn't it a short term solution? If they're smart enough to build a profile, won't they eventually be able to filter out the random spam to see the blips of consistency that are my true searches?
Michael, I Googled your conference and with all due respect, I did not see anything in the schedule that jumped out at me as fresh or new. It might be worth it to meet some new people, but the schedule only lists a small group of speakers (though I understand it has to start somewhere). As a grad student in psychology studying distributed teams, I interact with people who work in DTs all the time -- hearing somebody talk about their experience on a DT does not add enough value to justify a trip to the conference. The conference is also pitched at the IT crowd, most of whom have either worked on a DT already, know somebody who does, or have a decent understanding of some of the obstacles (vs. the luddite-on-the-street). On paper, the speakers all seem to have IT expertise but you're marketing soft skills for IT professionals. They are by no means mutually exclusive (and this reflects my own bias), but to give an example I'd rather listen to a leadership expert with IT knowledge than an IT expert with some leadership knowledge when the subject is leading DTs. Conversely, I don't want the leadership expert teaching me about SQL.
I am not saying the conference lacks any utility, it just doesn't appear to have enough to get me to show up. I am just one person. I hope this helps and best of luck to you!
When I was chatting with a Verizon technician troubleshooting our apartment DSL (alas, no FiOS), he said they now try to deliver slightly more than your contracted speed. It ends up being cheaper than fielding calls from people bitching about their slightly reduced speed. As such, I consistently peak slightly above my contracted speed. It's so refreshing when somebody in a corporation uses common sense (and gets away with it)!
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Old farts perhaps (and some young clueless ones), but there is a rich history of collaboration between computer science and psychology. We're not all Luddites. As a grad student in psychology (not associated with this study) who does conduct research with adult video game players, I can certainly comment on basic methodology. I would need to see the actual journal article to make bold pronouncements regarding the specifics, but assuming they are not completely incompetent researchers ...
1) It doesn't matter that the study was "only" 4 months. Individually you're right, +/- 4 months on a developmental marker is not a big deal at all. But this was not a change occurring across one or two children, this was across the treatment group. A systematic societal delay, even if it's just 4 months, is worth talking about. Do we need further data? Of course, I'd love to see the follow-up at a time greater than 4 months to see if these kids remain behind the curve. But neither you nor I has collected that data, so the 4 mo data will have to do for now to generate hypotheses regarding longer term effects.
2) You make a valid point regarding a single video game, but I don't believe it is as applicable to a gaming system. As long as there continue to exist good titles that I have not played, my 360 use will not decline any huge amount. I get tired of individual games, not the system itself. I do agree that it would have been nice to compare these random control trials kids to long-term exposure kids, but any results would have had major sampling confounds so it makes sense the researchers did not include them (assuming they didn't -- who knows what was left out of the press article).
As you point out, it would be difficult if not impossible to compare kids with and kids without video games (in a study with random assignment) through high school. But we could look at kids like the ones in this group to see if the gap remains years in the future. In other words, do these kids recover when their peers start playing games, are they permanently behind 4 mos, and what can they do to compensate and/or catch up (i.e., parental monitoring?).
You mention goofing off as a confound. Again, these kids were randomly assigned to PS or no PS. If goofing off caused the decline in learning (and was solely to blame), it would have done so among the no PS kids and there would have been no effect for owning or not owning a PS. That wasn't the case, so the PS caused a decline in learning. Now, it is possible that other activities hurt learning even more (i.e., TV) but that would only mask the effect of owning a PS and make it look smaller than it is.
The biggest thing that worries me is an expectancy or pygmalion effect given that parents presumably knew (or at least guessed) the purpose of the study and teachers may have known about the study (they probably did, since teacher feedback was collected). Most importantly, did teachers know which kids were in each condition? Teacher-student pygmalion effects are fairly well documented. That could totally kill the results. We need the journal article to know whether the teachers were blind to the treatment.
You conclude that the results are invalid without having read the journal article, so having not read it either, I'll say it sounds reasonable to me. Earth-shattering news? Not so much. Important to actually empirically test it (not just another correlation survey study)? Definitely. For every common sense belief we confirm with decent science (so everyone can say "well duh, I knew that!") we disconfirm another.
If this content was already on the disc, didn't they fail at the new EA model? It should have been "DLC" that was free to owners of purchased versions of the game (via an unlock code) and $5 to owners of used copies of the game (via $5 unlock code). To charge everybody for something already on the disc is greedy and lazy. What's amusing is that people would apparently be less outraged if only greed were involved -- that is, if the content were withheld and you had to download it.
One possible explanation: If reporters consciously or subconsciously expect old drivers to be crappy drivers, they may be more likely to report the ages of older drivers.
What program are you in? My classmates in organizational behavior are passionate about the field and many have prior experience. Like anything else I'm sure it all depends.
Not anymore. On my newer Win 7 system (multicore, 8GB RAM) I can happily play Mass Effect 2 with uTorrent, Virtual PC, Outlook, and Firefox active in the background and Alt+Tab around when I feel like it. I could never pull something like that off before. I have no illusions that it's all thanks to Win 7 -- it's the shiny hardware letting me do this -- but Win 7 is in no way impeding.
Gleaning information from very large data sets is very possible, even if gathered in ways that are not strictly rigorous. However, we have to be extremely cautious when we interpret the findings. One of the first things you learn in Stats or Research Methods 101 is that everything becomes significant in a large enough data set. If you have billions of data points and pick any two variables, you should find a statistically significant relationship. It won't mean anything, but someone with an agenda OR someone who doesn't know what they are doing can report it and make it sound real. With great power comes great responsibility! ;)
Or not. I don't doubt that your description is accurate for a minority of PhD students, but good luck buying or "hanging in there" to get the one I'm working on. I'm a) researching new enough topics that there's nothing to regurgitate to my professors (I know more about them than the topic; they are invaluable for the methodological and other support skills that are just as important as the raw knowledge) and b) working in a largely independent fashion (as it should be), sans hand holding. Remember though, the entire point of a PhD is to gain world class expertise in a very specific area. I think mixing it's/its a few times in trade is a reasonable sacrifice.
It was nice to be able to tinker with early Apples because there were few alternatives. But as much as I enjoy a good rant against Apple, I fail to see the problem. Buy your kids something else. Either he thinks the latest Apple SHINY is more important than his child's opportunity to get under the hood or he doesn't, and there are (or soon will be) numerous alternatives that are not as tightly locked. Life is about decisions and trade-offs.
I did a quick search and found http://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/index.html and http://www.volunteermatch.org/. I haven't used either, so I'd be curious to know if somebody here has and what the experience was like.
You've got it: Networking. Assuming your experience matches the position as well as the other blob of qualified applicants, they're looking for somebody who will "fit" the organization. That's where a contact gives you an edge by telling the hiring manager you play well with others or at minimum that you're not a douchebag.
I've been researching leadership and teams in MMOs for the past few years as part of my grad program in organizational psychology. In particular, I've studied players of EVE Online and looked at leadership behavior among guild/corp leaders as well as their followers. I'm still crunching the latest longitudinal data, but the early results point to average levels of transactional leadership behavior (a more managerial style; exchange based; you do X, I'll reward/punish you with Y) but strikingly low frequency of transformational leadership behavior (charismatic, visionary, empowering leadership; generally considered the "best" style of leadership).
Jargon aside, EVE players do not appear to be learning how to be better leaders by playing EVE Online. MMOs might help build follower skills (complete this quest/work assignment and I'll give you a gold piece/paycheck!) and make you a better wage slave, but I haven't seen empirical evidence that MMOs are teaching anyone how to be a leader in the workplace, as claimed by TFA. There are anecdotal stories from a few guild leaders, sure, but for now only guild leaders of large guilds should even consider putting MMO experience on their resume.
Finally, MMOs aren't going to teach /. readers about technology in the workplace. I am sorry if I crush anyone's dreams.
I'll second that! I've run some survey studies in EVE (and played a few years myself) and the self-report responses almost always top 95% (male), usually close to 98%. If we assume a few guys are lying for whatever reason, or simply hit the wrong button accidentally, it's even higher!
A good boss provides direction, clarity in job tasks, and the resources to get the job done. If the team starts a LAN party whenever the boss leaves the room or are unable to order pizza on their own, the boss might need to stick around. Otherwise they should get out of the way. Part of being a good leader is letting go.
A. Yes.
Asking this question is like claiming the automobile is dying because Toyota and the rest of the industry had a bad year.
Thanks, I'll have to try this out... but isn't it a short term solution? If they're smart enough to build a profile, won't they eventually be able to filter out the random spam to see the blips of consistency that are my true searches?
Michael, I Googled your conference and with all due respect, I did not see anything in the schedule that jumped out at me as fresh or new. It might be worth it to meet some new people, but the schedule only lists a small group of speakers (though I understand it has to start somewhere). As a grad student in psychology studying distributed teams, I interact with people who work in DTs all the time -- hearing somebody talk about their experience on a DT does not add enough value to justify a trip to the conference. The conference is also pitched at the IT crowd, most of whom have either worked on a DT already, know somebody who does, or have a decent understanding of some of the obstacles (vs. the luddite-on-the-street). On paper, the speakers all seem to have IT expertise but you're marketing soft skills for IT professionals. They are by no means mutually exclusive (and this reflects my own bias), but to give an example I'd rather listen to a leadership expert with IT knowledge than an IT expert with some leadership knowledge when the subject is leading DTs. Conversely, I don't want the leadership expert teaching me about SQL.
I am not saying the conference lacks any utility, it just doesn't appear to have enough to get me to show up. I am just one person. I hope this helps and best of luck to you!
I'll happily share your excitement, but based on TFA it's only about 16% of the non-MS market.
When I was chatting with a Verizon technician troubleshooting our apartment DSL (alas, no FiOS), he said they now try to deliver slightly more than your contracted speed. It ends up being cheaper than fielding calls from people bitching about their slightly reduced speed. As such, I consistently peak slightly above my contracted speed. It's so refreshing when somebody in a corporation uses common sense (and gets away with it)!
It's only $39.49 for 12 months over at Amazon (w/ comparable prices elsewhere)