News
University of Greenwich PhD project on internet gambling seeks participants
23 February 2010
“Routes into and out of problem internet gambling: the role of gender and type of game played.”
The purpose of this research is to expand the knowledge base of internet gambling by identifying how people become involved in internet gambling, what makes them continue, what makes some increase their gambling to problem levels and why/how do they cut down or stop. The research aims to see what similarities and differences there are between how men and women, and players of different internet games, are involved in internet gambling, and how some people reach problem internet gambling levels whereas others do not. These findings will be used to consider who is vulnerable to problem gambling, with findings compared to land gambling research to see where differences and similarities lie.
The research is funded by the Responsible Gambling Fund. It is a PhD project, anticipated to be completed by December 2011, with the final project being available via the RGF and aspects of the project published in relevant journals. The project is being conducted by Janette Davis, a psychology graduate who has been working alongside Professor Roslyn Corney, University of Greenwich, on a previous RGF (then RIGT) funded project on women’s internet gambling. Professor Corney is supervising the current PhD project.
Recruitment is currently underway for the first stage of the project which involves qualitative interviews. Participants are being sought from a number of different sources, including agencies such as Gamcare. The aim is to have a sample that represents a cross section of the internet gambling population, including men, women, players of different internet gambling games and players with different gambling levels, ranging from, infrequent (less than once a week), frequent (twice a week or more) or problem (as measured by problem gambling indices). This also includes selecting from populations who are currently gambling on the internet and also from populations who have given up or reduced their gambling in the last year.
The project has received ethical approval from the University of Greenwich Research Ethics Committee, which requires that action is planned to ensure that participant’s anonymity is preserved. Interview data will initially be put on computer in its original format. The participant’s name will be changed and all identifying information will be removed from the transcript (eg name, location, relative names, workplace, address, internet site played etc), before it is imported into data analysis software.
The original will then be removed from the computer and backed up to a disc which will be stored in a locked cabinet only accessible to the researcher. The participant’s name will be completely dissociated from the data and will not be used in any reports.
Contact: Janette Davis, University of Greenwich, J.M.Davis@gre.ac.uk, 0208 331 7577