Theme 3: Research and Theory Pre

Journal: Computers & Education

“The Editors welcome any papers on cognition, educational or training systems development using techniques from and applications in any technical knowledge domain”, the journal contains of 80 volumes so far. The aim with the Journal is to contain a summary of the highest level of general development within its context and review articles.

Paper: Min Gyu Kim and Joohan Kim (2010), Cross-validation of reliability, convergent and discriminant validity for the problematic online game use scale, in Computers in Human Behavior

The purpose in this study is to develop a measure problematic online game use scale, identify types of problematic online game use (POGU), and asses the validity of the problematic online game use scale. The study is dependent on two hypothesis based on previous studies/litterature, 1.  “There are several types of POGU” 2. “POGU is a multidimensional construct” hypothesis are motivated. This is exploratory research which seeks to explore more knowledge about problematic online game use, this also makes it a basic research. The absolute main-concepts are online games which is defined as interactive online or MMORPG, then there is Problematic online game use which can be defined (not real definition) as playing online games to the extent that it creates psychological, school, and work difficulties in a person’s life. The concepts are right for the studies purpose and the relation between the concepts are outlined in that: Pogu has it's base in the concept of online games, literature and reasoning as evidence. Evidence that POGU is an own kind of addiction is given. Other key concepts are: Virtual Relationship, Failure of Self Control, Conflict, Health Problem and Euphoria all 5 defined, motivated and well put in context in the text. 

I think the research design is both exploratory and confirmatory in that it both explores a potential PUGO scale and that it validate and check the reliability.  The full-information maximum-likelihood is used because the quantitative data from the participants (information about these stated) contained missing values, it was also motivated why he preferred this method over others. With the help of items (questions/statements kind of) from scales and questionnaires regarding game and internet addiction in previous studies, certain criteria’s, principles, pilot studies “principal axis factoring”, items were selected and excluded to be in the PUGO models. PAF method resulted in five factors for the model which he called, Euphoria, Health Problem, Conflict, Failure of Self-Control and Preference for Virtual Relationship (each item relates to one of these 5 factors). Initial data lead to 3 models which was valuated with “x^2-anlysis”, “Tucker-Lewis index” (NNFI) and “The Root Mean Square Error of Approximation” this lead to one model. Cross-validations of reliability to see if generalization of the model was possible each method motivated. Then checked ”Convergent validity so that the POGU scale was correlated with measures of individual differences”. Discriminant validity to see if POGU scale ‘‘yields measurements that are statistically distinguishable”. All data and models were presented in nice tables and figures. The POGU scale passed all “tests” and there for the conclusion that the “study represents an initial step toward developing, and testing a new scale to measure problematic online game use”, hence his hypothesis has been proven correct which is discussed. 

Things I reflected on: The discussion was mostly a summary, little information about the data gathering given.

1. That there is different kinds of and views on theory but they aim to either describe/analyze, explain, predict, instruct how to design/act or a combination of them. They can tell you what is, why, how, when, how to, where, what will be, how to do something. They explain the logic between cause and event in an abstract way. It has some degree of generality and probably boundries.

Theory is not things, data, diagrams, references, hypothesis (predictions), empirical patterns or facts.

2. I’d say that the major theory is that 20 different items in the form of statements, explained in appendix 1 in the paper, and their relation to the 5 factors, mentioned above, can measure problematic online game use. The representation of the theory would take the form of a scale. I’d say that this theory 2. Explanation because of the 20 statements and their relations to the five factors and the POGU scale to some extent explains why or which kind of POGU, they are not random but the cause is identified.

3. It can’t predict or tell how to do something. Generalization of the theory to a wide extent, if results of future studies agrees, is possible, justification and caution needed. It can explain what why and identify the cause of the phenomenon. This kind of theory, at least in the text, provides with new interesting insights which gives the opportunity to bring knowledge about POGU.