I became an attractive person in the virtual world: Users’ identification with virtual communities and avatars

A number of studies have examined virtual worlds, which can facilitate knowledge sharing, education, and enjoyment, among others. However, no study has provided an insightful research model for evaluating virtual worlds. This study suggests that users’ identification with virtual communities and avatars plays a critical role in the construction of attractive virtual worlds. The proposed model measures the level of the user’s identification with virtual communities, through which the user builds his or her trust in other community members. In addition, the study suggests that users’ identification with avatars is an important element of their satisfaction with virtual worlds. The results indicate that users’ identification with virtual communities as well as avatars can enhance their efficacy and trust and thus facilitate their sustained use of virtual services. The results have important theoretical and practical implications.     

Pre-service teachers’ perspectives on using scenario-based virtual worlds in science education

This paper presents the findings of a study on the current knowledge and attitudes of pre-service teachers on the use of scenario-based multi-user virtual environments in science education. The 28 participants involved in the study were introduced to Virtual Singapura, a multi-user virtual environment, and completed an open-ended questionnaire. Data from the questionnaire indicated that gender and current computer game use were likely to affect the perceived benefits of using virtual worlds in a classroom setting. Behavior management was seen as being a constraining factor on a pre-service teacher’s willingness to use a virtual world in the future. Overall, the results of the study indicate that pre-service teachers as a result of their use of Virtual Singapura are both aware of virtual worlds and have a reasonable understanding of both their potential advantages and disadvantages within a classroom setting.     

Decision-making in-socio and in-situ: Facilitation in virtual worlds

Past research suggests that “situatedness”, i.e. the context, as well as the social interaction that occurs within it, play an important role in cognitive processes such as learning and decision-making. Thus far, IT tools have been limited in the level and type of situatedness they facilitate. The advent of virtual worlds has changed this. Virtual worlds provide open, three-dimensional platforms for creating and designing real life-like spaces; they also allow for interaction between users in the form of “avatars” in that space. This research study focuses on virtual worlds as platforms for learning and decision-making. We propose a model that explains how individuals in a group learn and make decisions through a process that is influenced by the two unique characteristics of virtual worlds that enable situatedness: the facilitation for designing real life-like spaces, and the facilitation of rich many-to-many interactions.We draw on theories of situated cognition, social cognition, and flow to explicate the influence of these characteristics on the process of learning and decision-making. Data was collected by means of a quasi-experiment in Second Life (SL). Results from this study extend and validate the predictions of situated theories of decision-making within the context of a virtual world environment and suggest guidelines for practitioners who wish to use such environments to support organizational learning and decision-making. Perhaps the most compelling of these is to focus on maximizing the immersion of the individual in the activity by stimulating his or her perceptions of others and activity-related cues in the environment.     

Living the VirtuReal: Negotiating Transgender Identity in Cyberspace

This paper examines the ways transgender users manoeuver between online and offline worlds in order to negotiate their complicated gender identity and to overcome offline impediments. The study is based on virtual ethnography and discourse analysis within two online arenas, a newsgroup and a website, which are central to the Israeli transgender community. The analysis suggests that transgender users employ cyberspace as preliminary, complementary, and/or alternative spheres. Delving deeper into the meaning of the alternative sphere, the paper revisits 2 central issues in Internet research, namely the relationships between the online and the offline worlds, and identity management within online settings. The paper concludes by proposing a new term – VirtuReal – to address these issues.     

Modeling Methods for Reusable and Interoperable Virtual Entities in Multimedia Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds are facing several challenges to become a mature technology commonly used in their numerous potential applications such as games, training, education, health and collaborative work. Main challenges are the introduction of multimedia in virtual worlds and the decrease of the cost and the required time for their design, which remains an empirical process. This paper proposes a methodology for introducing multimedia and decreasing the cost and needed time. The main interest of the proposed methodology is to provide virtual worlds with multimedia, interoperability and reusability properties. Interoperability enables virtual entities belonging to virtual worlds independently designed (i.e., no prior explicit agreement exists between theirs respective designers) to interact with each others. Reusability enables virtual worlds designers to use a virtual entity pattern initially designed for a virtual world A to be used in the design of a new virtual world B. The originality of this methodology relies on multiagent concepts and learning techniques for avoiding prior complex specifications tasks to achieve interoperability and reusability of multimedia virtual entities in virtual worlds.     

Why aren’t organizations adopting virtual worlds?

The purpose of this study was to understand why organizational adoption of virtual worlds much has been much slower than expected, by empirically identifying factors that influence organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds. To do so, we developed a model of factors that influence organizational adoption of virtual worlds, based on the Technology–Organization–Environment framework. The model was tested using survey data from organizations, as well as secondary data. Interestingly, mimetic pressures and normative pressures exhibit the strongest effects on organizational intent to adopt virtual worlds. Contrary to expectations, none of the technical factors were to be found significant. These findings provide insights into why the organizational adoption rate of virtual worlds is much slower than expected. First, organizations are intended to adopt virtual worlds if other organizations are adopting virtual worlds. However, organizations are not adopting virtual worlds. Second, because respective competitors that have adopted virtual worlds are not benefiting or succeeding, organizations are not induced to adopt. Last, technological factors, such as relative advantage and compatibility, do not currently have a significant impact on an organization’s intent to adopt virtual worlds.     

User goals in social virtual worlds: A means-end chain approach

The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to investigate user goals in social virtual worlds; second, to introduce a methodological alternative (i.e., a means-end chain approach) for analyzing user goals in cyberspaces. The data were acquired from a web survey, and were analyzed by means-end chain analysis (MECA), which produces users’ goal structure in reference to a hierarchical system of interrelated goals (Olson & Reynolds, 1983). The results show that people come to social virtual worlds to satisfy their social and hedonic needs, and to escape from real world constraints, as do virtual community members and virtual gamers; they also pursue unique activities, such as creating virtual objects and selling them. On the other hand, by clarifying relations among users’ goals, MECA provides a richer explanation for user goals than prior research which only offers separate user goals for cyberspace users without explanation of relationship among goals.     

Understanding users’ motivations to engage in virtual worlds: A multipurpose model and empirical testing

Despite the growth and commercial potential of virtual worlds, relatively little is known about what drives users’ motivations to engage in virtual worlds. This paper proposes and empirically tests a conceptual model aimed at filling this research gap. Given the multipurpose nature of virtual words the model integrates extrinsic and intrinsic motivation as behavioral determinants. By making use of the literature on information system value and motivation theory four important system-specific virtual world characteristics (economic value, ease of use, escapism, visual attractiveness) are added as motivational drivers. Using structural equation modeling on a sample of 846 users of the virtual world Second Life the hypotheses were tested. The results support the model; they confirm the role of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation as behavioral determinants and show how and to what extent the four system-specific elements function as motivational basis. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Games without frontiers: On the moral and psychological implications of violating taboos within multi-player virtual spaces

When assessing the appropriateness of massively multiplayer online role-playing games, it is our contention that questions dealing with the morality of their content – especially regarding the more ‘adult’ nature of potential interactions – are the wrong sorts of questions to ask. Instead, when considering the permissibility of such games, a more informative strategy is to focus on what gamers are able to deal with, psychologically, especially regarding taboo violation. Thus, we argue that there is nothing morally problematic with online gamespace per se, no matter how prohibitive the simulated behaviour is offline (as long as the space is frequented by adults only). Instead, we should concern ourselves with whether the potential moral freedoms afforded the online gaming community are psychologically healthy: For it is our contention that underlying any change to the gamer’s behaviour offline is the need (in some) to seek psychological parity across domains (making congruent one’s identity and actions in both the virtual and offline worlds). It is therefore not so much what games are doing to us that is of concern, here, but what we are doing to ourselves through the process of seeking psychological parity.     

Virtual research assistants: Replacing human interviewers by automated avatars in virtual worlds

We conducted an experiment to evaluate the use of embodied survey bots (i.e., software-controlled avatars) as a novel method for automated data collection in 3D virtual worlds. A bot and a human-controlled avatar carried out a survey interview within the virtual world, Second Life, asking participants about their religion. In addition to interviewer agency (bot vs. human), we tested participants’ virtual age, that is, the time passed since the person behind the avatar joined Second Life, as a predictor for response rate and quality. The human interviewer achieved a higher response rate than the bot. Participants with younger avatars were more willing to disclose information about their real life than those with older avatars. Surprisingly, the human interviewer received more negative responses than the bot. Affective reactions of older avatars were also more negative than those of younger avatars. The findings provide support for the utility of bots as virtual research assistants but raise ethical questions that need to be considered carefully.     

Avatar creation in virtual worlds: Behaviors and motivations

Avatar creation has become common for people to participate and interact in virtual worlds. Using an online survey (N = 244), we investigated both the behavioral characteristics and major motivations for avatar creation in virtual worlds. Our results suggest that a majority of the participants had multiple avatars; these avatars’ appearance did not merely resemble the human players; and their personality did not necessarily mirror the player’s real personality. Furthermore, participants on average spent over 20 h per week and often interacting with others in the virtual worlds. Our exploratory factor analysis yielded four major motivations: virtual exploration, social navigation, contextual adaptation, and identity representation.     

Enhancing the experience of 3D virtual worlds with a cartographic generalization approach

In this work we propose a new approach for fast visualization and exploration of virtual worlds based on the use of cartographic concepts and techniques. Versions of cartographic maps with different levels of details can be created by using a set of operations named cartographic generalization. Cartographic generalization employs twelve operators and domain-specific knowledge, being the contribution of this work their transposition to 3D virtual worlds. The architecture of a system for 3D generalization is proposed and the system is implemented. Differently from traditional cartographic processes, we use artificial intelligence for both selecting the key objects and applying the operators. As a case study, we present the simplification of the historical quarter of Recife (Brazil).     

Place presence, social presence, co-presence, and satisfaction in virtual worlds

This study investigated the relationship among three types of presences, including place presence, social presence, and co-presence in virtual worlds and their relationship with satisfaction and immersive tendencies of students. Students’ scores on a subjective questionnaire were analyzed. The results indicated that there was a significant relationship among the place presence, social presence, and co-presence. While social presence seemed to affect the satisfaction most, place and co-presence also affected students’ satisfaction in the virtual world. Moreover, immersive tendencies of the students were related to their place and co-presence but not to their social presence. Findings highlighted the important issues for the design of virtual world environments to increase presence and satisfaction of students.     

Increasing student engagement through virtual interactions: How?

Our ongoing research is focusing on identifying and taxonomising the elements and the factors that affect learner engagement with virtual worlds when hybrid virtual learning models are used. Our main hypothesis links learner engagement with interactions, both in the virtual world and in the physical classroom. In order to examine this subject, there is an elaboration on and consideration of aspects such as the learners’ prior experiences in the use of virtual worlds, their preconceptions about using them as a learning tool and the impact that the instructional designers’ choices have on enhancing the opportunities for interactions. In this paper, we examine the impact that the orientation process has on university students who study computer science and have almost no experience in the use of virtual worlds. Our findings suggest that the orientation process contributed positively to students’ smooth induction and that resulted in having meaningful and engaging interactions. Furthermore, students’ simultaneous coexistence in both environments eliminated the drawbacks of each educational approach and broadened the network of interactions.     

Creative Problem Solving in Second Life: An Action Research Study

A digital Creative Problem‐Solving (CPS) process was facilitated in a 3D virtual world in order to assess whether such an environment was conducive to remote synchronous creative collaboration. IBM associates comprised the majority of the group that was involved in the process. Insights regarding the experience working within this virtual environment are discussed at length as seen through the eyes of the authors (CPS facilitators) of this paper and through the eyes of the participants. Data was gathered through a short feedback form administered to all participants, and informal interviews were also held to explore ways to improve the CPS experience. Results were encouraging. In common, participants reported that their experiences were deeply engaging and conducive to creative collaboration. An argument is made for the early adoption and use of this type of virtual worlds for remote‐synchronous creativity interactions. Finally, from a systems view of creativity, the authors identify opportunities for future research studies that examine the efficacy of creative collaboration within virtual worlds.     

Should I e-collaborate with this group? A multilevel model of usage intentions

The use of online collaboration tools for virtual teamwork has been studied extensively, but mainly at the individual-level. We decided to examine the effect of macro-level factors (i.e., team attributes) and applied hierarchical linear modeling analysis to a sample of data collected from 96 individuals nested in 34 virtual teams. Our results suggested that the development of behavioral e-collaboration intentions by individual virtual team members was affected by their perceptions about the system, as described by individual-level IT use theories, and macro-level factors pertaining to the team. The collaboration technology was perceived to be less useful when employed to communicate with social loafers; and collective social loafing negatively influenced the teams’ potency assessments. After controlling for individual-level perceptions of system usefulness, team potency augmented team members’ intentions to use the online collaboration technology with similar teams. It also improved team performance.     

Virtual goods,real goals: Exploring means-end goal structures of consumers in social virtual worlds

The aim of this study is to understand consumer goals for virtual consumption in social virtual worlds. Using a means-end chain approach, interviews with 93 users were analyzed to produce a hierarchical goal map, revealing that virtual consumption enables a diversity of goals beyond the previously identified experiential goals. The article's theoretical contributions include: (1) extending our understanding of user goals/goal relationships for virtual activities and (2) developing virtual liminoid theory, which describes transitions between users’ real-world and virtual identities and virtual consumption as a transition catalyst. The study illustrates the value of a goal focus for future research on user behavior in virtual worlds.     

Predicting users' return to virtual worlds: a social perspective

Virtual worlds or three‐dimensional computer‐based simulated environments have received considerable attention as platforms for entertainment, education and commerce. In contrast to a web site, for example, where a user interacts with a two‐dimensional site, virtual worlds provide a platform in which users can interact with other individuals, sometimes including strangers, within three‐dimensional environments. Virtual worlds afford a form of ‘socialness’ unlike many other technologies, often motivating a user – by virtue of these social experiences – to return. Drawing on the Spatial Model of Interaction and Awareness‐Attention Theory, we demonstrate that besides social aspects, which include social awareness and social perception, flow experience, which is the mental state of being fully absorbed and somewhat lost in time, is an essential ingredient in an individual's decision to return to a virtual world. We also demonstrate how characteristics of the technology are linked to the social aspects experienced in virtual worlds. A laboratory study conducted in a virtual world, Second Life, supports our assertions and identifies state predictors of flow that influence individuals' intentions to return to the virtual world environment.     

Testing a model of sense of virtual community

A distinguishing feature of virtual communities is their sense of community, i.e., their participants’ feelings of membership, identity, influence, and attachment with each other. This study tests a model in which members’ perceptions of the group’s norms mediate the relationships between supporting each other and identifying each other with the members’ sense of virtual community. Two studies were conducted providing partial support for the model. The results show that the perception of norms mediate the relationship between SOVC and (a) observing and publicly exchanging support, (b) perceiving that others know one’s identity, and (c) using technical features to learn and create identity. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.