(in English) This diploma thesis is examining the ways of using immersive virtual reality with senior citizens aged 65 plus with health problems. Those chosen individuals who live in a retirement home were examined and questioned after trying out a virtual reality headset with a specific travel experience using the Google Earth VR app. The main focus was to study their emotional state and its shifts. The author used a combination of quantitative and qualitative research to finalise the analysis. The theoretical part offers an insight on the use of immersive virtual reality in the lives of senior citizens such as how they spend free time in the Retirement homes. The analytical part of this dissertation shows a summary of existing studies and commercial projects using virtual reality with the aim to facilitate seniors. The qualitative research has helped to a better understanding of the Czech market. It also helped executing a scientific investigation centred on a particular group of seniors. Data was gathered via half structured interviews, observation and standardised questionnaires PANAS and Flow Short Scale.

Berichtet wird über eine Möglichkeit, Flow-Erleben unter experimentell kontrollierten Bedingungen systematisch zu variieren. Dabei werden die Tätigkeit (das Computerspiel <i>Roboguard</i>) und die Situationsbedingungen konstant gehalten. Variiert wird lediglich die Schwierigkeitsstufe, auf der gespielt wird. Als abhängiges Maß wurde die Flow-Kurzskala (FKS, Rheinberg, Vollmeyer & Engeser, 2002) verwandt. Es zeigten sich die vorhergesagten kurvilinearen Beziehungen zwischen Anforderungsstufe und Flow mit Effektstärken um 1 und größer. Zusammenhänge zwischen habitueller Zielorientierung (Hayamizu & Weiner, 1991) und Flow zeigten sich nur bei den flow-auslösenden Schwierigkeitsstufen. Es gab keine negative Beziehung zwischen Zielorientierung und Flow, vielmehr korrelierten sowohl die learning- als auch die performance goal orientation positiv mit der Flowkomponente Absorbiertheit. Aus diesem Befund wird eine Arbeitshypothese zur Beziehung von Motivation und Flow hergeleitet, wonach unter optimalen Bedingungen Besonderheiten der Initialmotivation vielleicht dann keine Rolle mehr spielen, wenn die Person erst einmal im Flow-Zustand ist. / The study presents a technique how to manipulate flow-experience via the computer game <i>Roboguard</i>. Under experimentally controlled conditions all parameters of the game and the situation were kept constant except the difficulty level the participants had to play on. Flow was assessed with the Flow Short Scale (FKS, Rheinberg et al., 2002). As predicted we received the highest Flow score on the medium/optimal level in comparison with an easy and difficult level (d > 1.0). We could not confirm the predicted negative effect of approval seeking goals (AGT, Hayamizu & Weiner, 1991) on Flow experience. Instead all three AGT subscales correlated positively with the FKS-subscale absorption. Perhaps qualitative differences in initial motivation loose their influence if participants experience Flow under optimal conditions.

This study focused on the behaviours of adult video game players in the context of positive and negative effects of video games, to accurately differentiate video game addicts from highly engaged and non-addicted players. To accomplish this, we adopted the Problematic Video Game Playing Test (PVGT) to measure the components of addiction and Flow Short Scale (FSS) to measure high-level engagement. This is a concept which has been lost in the previous studies, setting the current study apart from other studies which were primarily concerned with investigating the negative impact of video games on its players. To get the data needed for this study, we conducted an online survey with a 40-item questionnaire which included demographic information of the respondents, gaming experience and behavioural components of flow and addiction. We were able to attract 80 adult video game players to participate in the study. Our findings showed that 60% of these 80 adult video game players were not addicted, 34% were highly engaged while 6% of the players were addicted. These findings helped us to infer that not all highly engaged video game players are addicted. Furthermore, most of the addicted players were players who have been playing video games for a long time.