Social Presence in Virtual World Interviews

Abstract

Social presence varies from low, to moderate, to high in self-administered, telephone, and face-to-face survey interviews. New communication technologies add another layer of survey modes that can be understood along the same spectrum of social presence. Virtual worlds like Second Life are rapidly becoming popular environments for testing theories of social and economic behavior. Researchers who use Second Life as a data collection platform must consider the extent to which existing social theories hold in virtual environments. This study tests the hypothesis that indicators of interviewers’ social presence observed in real world survey environments persist in virtual environments with avatar interviewers and respondents. Results from data quality indicators provide tentative support for the hypothesis.