Ph.D. Dissertation - Research Project

Hello,

I am entering the dissertation stage of my Ph.D. program and am in the process of developing a research project that examines the cognitive flexibility of gamers playing MOBA games such as League of Legends. The project will be based off the work of Dr. Brian Glass (Texas) who used RTS games as a means of strengthening the cognitive flexibility of participants.

Prior to the beginning of the treatment, subjects were placed into categories based on their current usage of the game (in this case it was StarCraft). Upon being placed, the subjects then took a battery of tests to measure their cognitive flexibility (pretest). Then, participants were asked to play the game following the conditions specified by the experiment. Upon completion of the treatment, subjects then took the same battery of tests (posttest) to determine if there were changes in cognitive flexibility.

I would like to build upon this by first shifting to a MOBA game (League of Legends). From here, I would like to separate prospective participants by ranking (from Bronze to Platinum) with the assumption that those at higher rankings possess greater cognitive flexibility. Each participant would then need to create a "smurf" account so that there rankings would all be base-lined. At the start of the study, participants would then play the required seed matches and then would follow with 5-10 ranked games per week (more details would be provided on how to control for extraneous variables).

Prior to and at the conclusion of the study, participants would be asked to complete the very same battery of tests utilized by Dr. Glass in his work with RTS games. The data would of course adhere to IRB standards for privacy and anonymity of participants. At this stage of the project, I am simply trying to determine if there would be a large enough participant pool to conduct an analysis.