Proposed Methodology Of Investigation/Study

Legal and Ethical Considerations

The term virtual reality connotes to the computer simulation that enables an individual to interact in different ways. The term was coined by French playwright Antonin Artaud in 1938 (Biocca and Levy 2013). The purpose of virtual reality is provide the user a digital experience that is similar to real life. Usually virtual reality instruments include mounted head displays, body tracking devices and three-dimensions stereo systems (3D). According to Ong and Nee (2013) with the advancement in technology, there has been the incorporation of additional equipments that are omni-directional treadmills that render the feeling of interacting and communicating with a real person although in reality, these are the virtual objects. Modern technology has facilitated in the upgradation of virtual reality experience to fostering the immersion of reality with the virtual world. Apart from the introduction of these new equipments there has been improvement in the software meant to make the virtual reality experience more sophisticated and of high quality.

Virtual reality is believed to usher in a flood of transformations through the sectors of manufacturing, gaming and several other domains that would turn out to be profitable. However, behind the masquerade of commercial prospect and the next-generation entertainment virtual reality has remained a controversial subject. Scholars have been interested to the positive as well as negative impact of virtual reality. According to the a summit organized by the George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health was concerned with understanding the impact of virtual reality on the millennials. The highlight of this seminar was to discuss the scope and possibilities of virtual reality. It has been argued that virtual reality has immense potential to bring a change in the world and in the lives of people (Saposnik, Levin and Stroke Outcome Research Canada (SORCan) Working Group, 2011). The virtual reality as an industry is being predicted to earn an enormous amount of revenue. It has been argued that the interest of the younger adults of the millennial generation or the baby boomers needs to be incorporated into future research. Studies have shown that the augmented and virtual reality is has motivated the present generation to tap the advantages of virtual reality and experiment with virtual reality through the innovation of technology. Apart from the younger generation who have reaped to reap the benefits of virtual reality, the older generations have also accrued experienced the positive influences of virtual reality (Seth, Vance and Oliver 2011). Virtual reality is one of the most important developments of the modern time for social development as it has the potential to resolve the crisis. Scholars have found that virtual reality has the potential to provide succour in the treatment of alter-ego, porn addiction, suicide, prevention of suicide, dehumanization of the society and an absence of empathy being some of the issues (Kandalaft, Didehbani, Krawczyk, Allen and Chapman 2013). Science and Technology Studies have been interested examining and ascertaining the status of virtual reality. The Oculus Rift is Facebook purchased an in illustration of virtual reality headset technology that has made gained immense popularity after it.

Risks and Their Management

Investigation study

The prognosis about virtual reality is that it is the future of and would be an important tool for the architects and the product developers. However, there have been resistance regarding the negative impact of virtual reality as it is predicted to turn children and the teenagers into addicts of virtual reality and make them passive towards the real world (Foley and Maddison 2010). Based on this intensive review of literature I am interested to understand the interaction of college students with virtual reality. My broader question would be to examine the impact of virtual reality on the young adults My objective would be to understand what aspects of virtual reality is attractive for them? What time of the day do they engage with virtual reality? How they were introduced to the world of virtual reality? Have their engagement of virtual reality turned into addiction. The study is meant to supplement existing literature where is a deficient in understanding the motivations of the young adults and their interaction with virtual reality. Young adults can be described as those individuals who have just entered in their 18^th age.

Proposed methodology of investigation or study

Epistemology or research philosophy refers to the source of knowledge and it questions about the being of knowledge, it is research philosophy that informs the methodology of research (Smith 2015). The term methodology refers to the framework of methods that that emerges from the orientation and disposition of particular approach to the pursuit of knowledge. Research philosophy can be either positivist, interpretivist, Marxist and critical theory or post-structuralist. Given, the broader questions of the research and the temperament of the study, I would like to adopt the interpretivist research philosophy for the purpose of the study. According to the interpretivist approach, the thrust is to understand the individual or community from their standpoint and subsequently engage in the interpretation of the social action of the individuals. Individuals imbue meanings to their social action and this makes it imperative to interpret the social action of the individual by placing oneself in he shoes of the other person. The interpretivist research philosophy has led to the adoption of qualitative methodology and the deployment of grounded theory (Neuman 2013). According to the grounded theory of research, the researcher commences with a broad question based on the review of literature. This is to be followed by entering the field or the universe of study.

This study is interested to understand the .impact of virtual reality in the lives of young adults and evaluate the positive and negative impact of virtual reality through the interpretation of the participants. The methods that would be adopted for the study are qualitative interviewing, focussed group discussions and semi-structured questionnaire. Qualitative interviewing or in-depth interviewing refers to interviewing the participants in an intensive manner, taking time to know the participants, building up the rapport and understanding the nuances of the issues through the viewpoints of the participants (Lewis 2015). The term semi-structured questionnaire refers to a questionnaire that would have broad questions that would enable the interviewee to express themselves without any barriers.  The semi-structured questionnaire would comprise of questions regarding the demographic profile of the participants, how they were introduced to virtual reality and how much time do they spend on virtual reality games. There will be additional questions on whether their predilection to virtual reality have affected other activities, whether they have virtual reality options in their home, their expenditure on this form of entertainment, whether they are aware abut the potential danger of virtual reality and whether they have made an attempt to rectify their addiction of virtual reality. Focussed group discussions also known as FGDs will be another method where I would have a discussion with the consumers of virtual reality (Brinkmann 2014). In the FGD session, I would show a documentary on the positive and negative impact of virtual technology and later have a discussion with the participants about their opinions. One challenge of the focussed group discussions is that there might be one participant who is more dominant than the other participant and therefore completely overpower the discussion. I would also need to ensure that all the participants have equal chance of expressing themselves. The research population for the study will be young adults who visit shopping malls and stores that offer virtual reality as a form of entertainment. From this research population I would select my sample population based on probability sampling. The feature of probability sampling is that the researcher visits the fieldsite being fully aware of the presence of the participants in that particular site. Therefore, convenience sampling or purposive sampling seems appropriate for the purpose of the study. The participants will be men and women. The data collected from the study will be transcribed and coded in the form of narrative of each of the participants. Tape recorder will be used during the phase of interview and focussed group discussion with the consent of the participants. The sample size would be 40 respondents (20 male respondents and 20 female respondents). The earlier research on the impact of virtual reality has been concerned with the quantitative methodology and therefore, surveys have been the common method adopted by the researchers. There is an absence of literature that have intervened into the impact of virtual reality on the younger adults through he deployment of the qualitative method. Incorporation of the qualitative method into research enables in understanding the give phenomenon in a much more refined manner.

References

Legal and ethical considerations

The Data Protection Act 1988 enshrines that the personal data that is to be used by the organizations should use and process the data in a fair manner. There is an emphasis on keeping the data safe (Kuner 201). This legal consideration is not important for the present research considering that it is the participants who will be enquired about their views on virtual reality, Ethics in research reefers to the norms, professional values and principles adhered to by the researchers in the pursuit of their research. The researcher is expected to follow these norms appropriately with the aim of making the experience of research more just, humane and grounded on good values. The ethical considerations for the research would be maintaining the anonymity of the participants, not coercing the participants into the research, informing the participants about the real purpose of research and communicating to them that they can decline from participating in the research at any given point of time (Resnik 2015). Considering, my research would be dealing with young adults I need to ensure that they feel comfortable. My role and position as a researcher should not overwhelm the participants and therefore, IW would need to maintain the balance between professional researchers and that of an amiable person so that my participants feel comfortable in communicating with me. I would need to ensure that the participants during the focused group discussions do not feel coerced or excluded while articulating their opinions. There would not be any legal consideration as I will be conducting the research with the consent of the participants. The participants will need to sign the confidentiality form that would render them greater autonomy during the course of the research.

Risk and their management

Despite the careful planning and outlining of the research plan, thee may emerge potential risk that threatens to jeopardise the study. Some of these risks or challenges can be that the location that will be selected for the interview, for example the food complex in the mall might not allow me and the participants to sit in that for a long period considering that there will be visitors. This will interfere with the flow of the research. This will be of high occurrence. Therefore, the manager will be informed a priory so that the interview can take place without any hindrance. Secondly, during the projection of the documentary there my be technical glitches. For this it would be my responsibility to crosscheck the instruments and the devices before the onset of the research. This will be medium occurrence. The third risk or challenge that may emerge in the research is the participant may not be interested any longer in the research and therefore would discontinue. This is of medium occurrence. Therefore, to minimize this occurrence I need to communicate the purpose of the research to the participants and conduct the research during their preferable time so that they can answer without any hindrances or feeling.

Research plan and timetable

Given , the qualitative approach of the study and the methods that would be adopted for the study, this research timetable have been created that provides an overview of the time and activities that would be required to accomplish this research. There will also be additional two weeks as research might take longer time than interpreted and few extra weeks

                                                                        Gantt Chart created by the author

References:

Biocca, F. and Levy, M.R. eds., 2013. Communication in the age of virtual reality. Routledge.

Brinkmann, S., 2014. Interview. In Encyclopedia of critical psychology (pp. 1008-1010). Springer New York.

Foley, L. and Maddison, R., 2010. Use of active video games to increase physical activity in children: a (virtual) reality?.Pediatric exercise science, 22(1), pp.7-20.

Kandalaft, M.R., Didehbani, N., Krawczyk, D.C., Allen, T.T. and Chapman, S.B., 2013. Virtual reality social cognition training for young adults with high-functioning autism. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 43(1), pp.34-44.

Kuner, C., 2010. Data protection law and international jurisdiction on the Internet (Part 2). International Journal of Law and Information Technology, 18(3), pp.227-247.

Lewis, S., 2015. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Health promotion practice,16(4), pp.473-475.

Neuman, W.L., 2013. Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Pearson education.

Ong, S.K. and Nee, A.Y.C., 2013. Virtual and augmented reality applications in manufacturing. Springer Science & Business Media.

Resnik, D.B., 2015, December. What is ethics in research & why is it important. In ideas.

Seth, A., Vance, J.M. and Oliver, J.H., 2011. Virtual reality for assembly methods prototyping: a review. Virtual reality,15(1), pp.5-20.

Saposnik, G., Levin, M. and Stroke Outcome Research Canada (SORCan) Working Group, 2011. Virtual reality in stroke rehabilitation: a meta-analysis and implications for clinicians. Stroke, 42(5), pp.1380-1386.

Smith, J.A. ed., 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods. Sage.

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