Call for Collaborators

What do collaborators do?

In this project, we interview many types of people who play video games intensively. The two relevant groups for this collaboration are the following.

Group A: People aged 16 or more who have sought expert help or support from therapists, psychologists, or similar services because of having problems with gaming.

Group B: People aged 16 or more who play esports games non-professionally approximately 30h per week or more and do not consider gaming problematic or negatively affecting their health. 

We expect a collaborator to recruit and carry out interviews with 1–15 participants in Group A (Mandatory). Collaborators are encouraged to recruit and carry out interviews with 1–5 participants in Group B (Optional). Two existing interview guides should be used for the interviews in both groups. The first one is called Phenomenology of Play and it addresses the person’s gaming in their sociocultural context. The other one is an open guide for a clinical interview, which addresses the participant’s mental health. We wish each participant to be interviewed with both approaches. This means two approximately 2-hour interviews for each participant. 

What do collaborators receive?

Each collaborator is offered co-authorship in the in-principle accepted Registered Report as well as the data they have helped to generate. All data are stored in the Finnish Social Science Data Archive. We take full financial and practical responsibility for transcription, translation to English, and storing of the data for open academic reuse through a careful identifier-removal process. We do not, in principle, compensate for the time it takes to carry out the interviews, but if the situation in your country or institution is such that the interviews would generate costs, please contact us and we can discuss possible solutions. 

Who can collaborate?

We are open to collaboration with researchers in all countries beyond our own (Finland, Slovakia, South Korea). However, our hope is to specifically find collaborators from countries where research on gaming is scarce or not studied at all. If many collaborators express interest, our limited resources should go to countries with marginal research histories in this domain. Please note that the clinical interview should be carried out by a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or similar clinical expert. All collaborators must show evidence of meeting local ethical standards, e.g. by IRB. 

If you are interested and wish to have more information, please contact Veli-Matti Karhulahti veli-matti.m.karhulahti@jyu.fi (or DM in Mastodon @MKarhulahti@mstdn.social or Twitter @MKarhulahti). 

Collaboration checklist

1. Read the Stage 1 Registered Report “Reconstructing Gaming Disorder: A Taxonomy by Registered Report​” to understand the structure of the project.

2. Discuss with your local colleagues or lab. Ensure that at least one person in your collaborator group has clinical expertise (as a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or similar).

3. Discuss with the ORE team about the estimated number of participants as well as practicalities in your country. 

4. Acquire ethical review approval in your institution or otherwise provide evidence of compliance with local ethical standards. 

5. Sign collaboration and data processing agreements with the University of Jyväskylä.