Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
(1990) and are similar to those used by Simmers
and Anandarajan (2001) in their study of Internet
user satisfaction in the workplace. The items had
a 5-point scale where (1) was labeled 'none' and
(5) was labeled 'very intensive.'
rated for importance on a 5-point scale measured
from (1) 'not important' to (5) 'very important'.
12 questions addressed potential benefits and 12
questions addressed potential risks (see Table 6
and Table 7, respectively, for lists of the potential
benefits and risks).
Section : Web Development
Experience
Section : Approaches to Reducing the
Risks of End-user Web Development
Levels of Web development training were also ob-
tained for formal courses and self study separately,
using items similar to those described above. In
order to determine which Web development tools
end users had used, a list of nine popular tools
(see Table 4) was created based on information
from a review of authoring tools (Moore, 2002).
Respondents were asked whether they had used
each of them and also given provision to name any
other tools used. Reasons for non-development
were explored via three items that were developed
for this study. Respondents were asked to rate the
importance of each reason for non-development
on a 5 point scale where (1) was labelled 'not
important' and (5) was labelled 'very important'
(see Table 5 for the items).
The questionnaire included 14 items to measure
the perceived importance of the major activities
that can be undertaken to reduce the risks of
end-user development on the Web. These items
are from the Nelson and Todd (1999) instrument.
Each approach was rated for importance on a 5-
point scale measured from (1) 'not important' to
(5) 'very important.'
results and disCussion
spreadsheet, internet, and web
development experience
Table 1 summarises how long the respondents
had been using computers, spreadsheets, and the
Internet. On average, they had been using comput-
ers for 14 years (ranging from 4 years to 30 years).
Some participants had considerable experience,
as 30 years of use indicates adoption very early
in the personal computing revolution. The aver-
age length of spreadsheet use was just under 8
years (with a range of a few months through to 21
years). Respondents had been using the Internet
Sections 3 and 4: Benefits and Risks
A list of the major benefits and a list of the major
risks were developed from the literature on benefits
and risks of development by end users (Alavi &
Weiss, 1985-1986; Amoroso & Cheney, 1992;
Benson, 1983; Brancheau & Brown, 1993; Davis,
1988; O'Donnell & March, 1987; Rivard & Huff,
1984, 1985). Each potential benefit and risk was
Table 1. Background characteristics of respondents
Standard
Deviation
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Age (years)
44.68
20
67
10.32
Computing experience (years)
14.22
4
30
6.66
Spreadsheet experience (years)
7.85
0
21
5.40
Internet experience (years)
6.19
0
12
2.79
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