To
adventurebound,
You're absolutely right, that results can be influenced by experimenter bias, and therefore I've opted to use empirically validated questionnaires with good reliability and validity. While you are also right that facts and results of studies can be twisted, the goal of publishing a scientific paper is to present findings in an objective fashion, and if the paper is quite stilted, the editors to the journals it was submitted to will not accept it for publication. I disagree with the comment that it is not a valid questionnaire, and the committee which reviewed this study also did not view it as such. I think one of the reasons I've been receiving this feedback is due to my construction of the gambling demographics page, where several poker players revealed to me that the design of some questions did not capture poker well, although the questions would be adequate for forms of gambling. At the end of the study in the debriefing, I explain the goal and purpose of this study, of which the questions that need revision are not really a part of. One of the interesting things I've learned by doing this is that a lot of the basic questions you could ask other forms of gamblers do not truly fit poker players. A student in the lab I'm currently working in has expressed interest in furthering this research next year after I've left, and this kind of feedback will be helpful in the design of subsequent surveys. I stand by my statement that this survey is a true and fair research paper, despite the shortcomings in acquiring some basic information.
To Spranger:
You're right about the impact that TV coverage and marketing has had on the world of poker. In fact the authors of the study I've based my project on did posit that TV coverage had a significant impact in making poker what it is today. Although this topic is interesting, I'd be interested to hear of a feasible way to assess that impact via an online questionnaire, what kind of predictions you could make with the information you collect, what questions you would need to ask to get at that information

Basically, the impact of the media on poker was too large in scope for this study. It would be great if I could write a paper on everything that has to do with poker, but as you saw in my debriefing, it was not a goal to examine this element of poker. It would be an interesting topic to tackle though
Tony.