The Titanic Game: Introducing Game Heuristics to Mixed Methods Theorizing and Data Analysis

Abstract

Despite tremendous interest in social games and game studies, the potential of game heuristics for the field of mixed methods remains unknown. This article introduces game heuristics to mixed methods research, showing how it was used in a specific study on the survival probabilities on the Titanic. Specifically, we describe how game heuristics was used to create the explanandum, code and interpret the qualitative material, and set up and interpret the quantitative model. Furthermore, we show and explicate how game heuristics was used to construct seven types of meta-inferences. The Titanic data set is especially interesting, since it is routinely used for statistical mono-method teaching; however, it can be shown that a mixed methods approach leads to a better explanation.