Title

Heterogeneous Knowledge Distribution In Mmo Player Behavior: Using Domain Knowledge To Distinguish Membership In A Community Of Practice

Keywords

Community of practice; Expertise; MMO; Social learning

Abstract

Current examinations of expertise in the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) domain focus primarily on player performance; explorations of player knowledge, however, have the opportunity to meaningfully supplement these studies. Including player knowledge in MMO studies provides the framework needed for a detailed examination of the role of experience and community membership in defining engaged MMO players within a larger population of potential players. Using the Community of Practice framework, we developed a measure of participant's knowledge of MMO specific language to identify individuals who actively engage with other players, a constantly shifting subpopulation who are meaningfully different than those who are not actively participating. We used membership in a community of practice, as determined by our knowledge assessment, to examine the effectiveness of broader demographic questions and more MMO specific demographic questions in creating a predictive model of membership. Our findings indicate that demographics specific to MMO players are more predictive of membership than those used for a general population. Consequently, we recommend that future studies use knowledge-based measures to identify a subpopulation of engaged MMO players within a larger population, allowing researchers to describe their effects with greater precision.

Publication Date

2-1-2016

Publication Title

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume

55

Number of Pages

455-467

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.09.032

Socpus ID

84943761024 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84943761024

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