The purpose of the study is to determine whether intensive, short term reflex training methods on the performance of proficient amateur players of fast paced action online video games (based on actions per minute) can be enhanced to the level of professional players. Actions per minute (APM) is a measurement of a player’s load handling capacity and is one of the metrics for judging player skill. A casual player can hit 50 APM; an experienced player, 75 APM; a proficient player 150 APM; and professional players can get up to 500–600 APM.

A sample of 40 secondary school students who are proficient players (150 APM) of a fast paced action online video game are randomly assigned to two groups. 20 students will be assigned to the intensive, short term training group and 20 students to the control group. The students in the training group will follow a daily one-hour intensive reflex training programme for a period of 12 weeks. The programme is online, requiring students to respond via key inputs as quickly and accurately as possible to visual and audio stimuli. After each training session, subjects will be required to practice (i.e. playing the game) for 4 hours per day. At the end of the 12-week period, all the students will take part in an online multiplayer competition where the APM of the participants will be measured.

Developed for use at an October 2016 CENTRES workshop on the Social, Behavioural and Educational Research. © 2016 National University of Singapore. All rights Reserved.

Questions for Discussion

1.  Is this study within the scope of the Human Biomedical Research Act?
2.  If so, would altering the protocol (e.g., lowering the number of hours trained) bring the study out of scope?