Engagement in Games: Developing an Instrument to Measure Consumer Videogame Engagement and Its Validation

Amir Zaib Abbasi,Helmut Hlavacs,Ding Hooi Ting

doi:10.1155/2017/7363925

Abstract

The aim of the study is to develop a new instrument to measure engagement in videogame play termed as consumer videogame engagement. The study followed the scale development procedure to develop an instrument to measure the construct of consumer videogame engagement. In this study, we collected the data in two different phases comprising study 1 (n=136) and study 2 (n=270). We employed SPSS 22.0 for exploratory factor analysis using study 1 respondents to explore the factors for consumer videogame engagement and reliability analysis. Results of EFA resulted with six-factor solution. We further used SmartPLS 3.0 software on study 2 respondents to further confirm the six-factor solution as reflective measurement model on the first-order level, and three second-order formative constructs on the second-order or higher-order level as formative measurement model. Results of the reflective measurement model and formative measurement model evidenced that consumer videogame engagement has strong psychometric properties and is a valid instrument to measure engagement in videogame play. Results also confirmed that consumer videogame engagement is a multidimensional construct as well as a reflective-formative construct. The study is unique in its investigation as it develops an instrument to measure engagement in videogame play which comprises the cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions.

Highlights

The popularity of videogame playing has increased significantly in the last decade [1, 2]
This study follows the definition of engagement given by [29,30,31] to conceptualize the concept of consumer videogame engagement as “engagement is a multidimensional construct which is subject to a context-specific expression of relevant cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dimensions.”
The results indicated that the path coefficient between consumer videogame engagement and global measure was 0.826 as shown in Figure 1, which was higher than the threshold value and demonstrating that the formative constructs have achieved the convergent validity

Summary

Introduction

The popularity of videogame playing has increased significantly in the last decade [1, 2]. The total consumer’s expenditure on games industry has increased to $22.41 billion in 2015 [3]. Videogame playing causes consumers to get addicted to a videogame [6] which leads people to engage in videogame play [7]. This is one of the key characteristics of videogames—it creates engagement in a videogame play [8]. Engagement in videogames has become an important subject of study that needs considerable attention

Objectives

Results

Conclusion