Development and Validation of a Questionnaire to Measure Respondents' Perceived Risks of Web Surveys

• Activity Number: 349
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 2, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Hsien-Yuan Hsu*+ and Yi-Hua Lai and Hsin-Ying Chin
• Companies: National Taiwan Normal University and National Taiwan Normal University and National Taiwan Normal University
• Keywords: measurement development ; perceived risk theory ; response rate ; web surveys

Abstract

Based on Perceived Risk Theory, we hypothesized that privacy and time risks of Web surveys as perceived by respondents would have negative impacts on response rates. However, no tool for measuring respondents' perceived risks of Web surveys was found. The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire which could measure respondents' perceived privacy and time risks of Web surveys. Privacy risk was defined as "potential loss of control over personal information or the responses of Web surveys", while time risk was defined as " potential loss of time when replying a Web survey or spending more time on follow-up Web surveys after finishing the current one". The Questionnaire of Web Survey Perceived Risk (QWSPR) was developed and comprised 10 items. Survey data consisting of 620 college students' responses to QWSPR were randomly separated into two groups for cross validation of score validity: group one was used for exploratory factor analysis and group two was used for confirmatory factor analysis. Due to cross-loading problems, one item was deleted. Results indicated that a two-factor (privacy and time risks) structural model was validated.