Dear participant,

Thank you for your interest in our study! Before taking part in the study, we ask interested participants to complete this short screening questionnaire. Please read the following information carefully before continuing.

1. Purpose of the screening

This questionnaire is part of the participant selection process for a research study. It asks about your demographic background, gaming experience, access to gaming platforms, availability, and other information relevant to participation.

The study is open to people who are resident in a European country.

If selected, you will be provided with three commercially available video games free of charge. You will be asked to play each game for at least 15 hours before moving on to the next game. If you complete the game in less than 15 hours, then of course you can move onto the next game. Besides, if you are enjoying the game and want to play more than 15 hours, then you are highly invited to do so. The study will take place from November to March, with breaks between the games. You will have up to approximately two months for each game, so you can distribute the approximately 15 hours of gameplay across this period according to your schedule.

In addition to playing the games, participation in the study involves completing questionnaires and other study activities. Participants who complete the full study will receive financial compensation.

Your responses will be used to assess participants for the study and to contact you regarding the outcome of the screening process. Completing this questionnaire does not guarantee selection for the study. The screening questionnaire takes approximately 3–5 minutes to complete.

2. Voluntary participation

Participation in the screening is voluntary. You may stop completing the questionnaire at any time without giving a reason and without any disadvantage.

3. Processing and storage of your data

The information you provide in this questionnaire will be treated confidentially and used for the purposes described above. Because we ask for your email address so that we can contact you regarding the outcome of the screening, your email address will be stored together with your screening responses. The screening data therefore cannot be considered completely anonymous at this stage. The screening data will initially be stored on the University of Klagenfurt’s servers via LimeSurvey. After the screening process, the data will be transferred to password-protected storage used by the research team. The screening data will be used only for participant selection and recruitment. They will be retained for as long as necessary to complete the participant selection and recruitment process, for a maximum of 6 months, and will then be deleted. Access to the data will be restricted to members of the research team who require it for participant selection and study-related communication.

4. Contact

If you have questions about the screening or the study, you can contact:
Francesco Barzetta, University of Klagenfurt, Universitätsstraße 65–67, 9020 Klagenfurt am Wörthersee
Email: francesco.barzetta@aau.at

For questions concerning data protection, you may contact the Data Protection Officer of the University of Klagenfurt: Email: dsb@aau.at

For questions concerning the ethical aspects of the study, you may contact the Ethics Council of the University of Klagenfurt: Email: ethikrat@aau.at

5. Informed consent

By continuing with this questionnaire, you confirm that you have read and understood the information above and voluntarily agree to participate in the screening process and to the processing of the information you provide for the purposes described above. If you do not wish to participate in the screening, please close this window.

By clicking “Next”, you agree to the consent statement above.