Chapter 3: Research Methodology
3.5 Instrument Development
3.5.1 Survey Questionnaire Development
In order to explore the factors which are determinant of the adoption process of e-government in Saudi Arabia, measurement of the model constructs is developed. In order to measure the model, we constructed a measurement for each construct, using the definition we adopted for the purpose of this study. The following table (Table 3.1) illustrates the constructs of the research model and their measurements.
Table 3.1: Survey Constructs Measurement
Construct Definition Measurement
Perceived Usefulness
(PU)
Benefits of saving time and money and increase the efficiency of the interaction with the government.
Increase interaction with government
Valuable services,
Accessibility anytime,
Reducing cost and time Perceived
Ease of Use (PEOU)
The degree to which an individual believes that using a particular system will be free of effort (Davis et al., 1989)
Easy to use the website
Easy to access website
Accessibility to information
Flexibility of services
Suitable customer support.
50 Perceived
Corruption (PC)
The lack of government integrity to account or accept the responsibility for its actions, and to disclose the information and decision-making process in a transparent manner.
Integrity
Accountability
Transparency
Trust of Government
(TOG)
public evaluation for the government based on their perceptions of the integrity and capability to provide services that fit citizens’ expectation (Carter and Belanger, 2005)
Trust the security of e-government.
Trust government agencies.
Privacy protection by the government.
Trust government ability in online transaction
Trustworthiness of government agencies.
Trust of Internet (TOI)
The trust in the reliability of the enabling technology(Carter and Belanger, 2005)
Internet safety
Internet security
Social influence (SI)
The degree to which that others believes will affect someone to use e-government.
People influence on using e-government.
People influence on trusting government.
People influence on the perception of e-government usefulness.
Family and friends influence.
Behavioral intention (BI)
Person’s subjective probability that he or she will engage in or perform some behavior” (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1975)
Intention to use the services
Intention to continually use the services
Mandatory use of the services
51 The survey of this study is divided into two parts. The first part consists demographic information, and the second part is consists of questions related to the constructs. The second part consists of one contingency question, that asks participants, whether they use e-government services or not. Based on their answers to this question, they will be moved into the next question. As for the respondents who use e-government service, the survey involves77 questions (5 of them are for the demographic information), 52 are closed-ended mandatory questions to evaluate e-government services in general and 20 are closed-closed-ended optional questions to evaluate any specific service. This part of the questionnaire is designed to contain two evaluation of e-government (general and specific) in order to examine the difference between an individual’s perceptions of e-government services in general term and his/ her perceptions of a specific service. This design helps to explore to what extent the citizens’ perception in both cases affect their intention to use e-government.
In the case if the participants do not use e-government services, the survey involves 16 questions beside 5 questions for the demographic information, 15 closed-ended questions are mandatory and one open-ended question is optional, to explain the reasons for not using the services. The questions in this part are designed to contain measurements of each construct that we examine in our conceptual model. This part designed to provide a better understanding of the reasons that curb the citizens’ engagement with e-government and to explore the factor that has the most negative effect on their intention to use e-government.
The questions of the questionnaire were designed to measure the constructs based on the definitions we adopt for this study. Some of the questions, such as questions to measure the perceived corruption and the social influence, were specially designed for this study, i.e. they were not adopted from previous studies.
The questions that measure the other constructs (PEOU, PE, TOI, TOG, SI, and BI) were adopted from several studies measure the same constructs (Venkatesh et al., 2003; Carter and Belanger, 2005; Belanger and Carter, 2008; Wangpipatwong et al., 2008; Singh et al., 2010; Wang and Lo, 2013; Al-Hujran et al., 2015) with some modifications to match the context of this study. Table 3.2 outlines all the survey items that have been adopted from previous research.
52 Table 3.2: Survey Items
Constructs Items Source
Perceived Usefulness
(PU)
Government website would enable me to complete transactions more quickly.
I think government web site would provide a valuable service for me.
Carter and Belanger (2005)
Government websites Save my money in assessing government services.
Wang and Lo (2013) I believe that using e-government website to access
government services provide good public value
Al-Hujran et al.
(2015) Using government services enable me to do business with the
government anytime not limited to regular hours.
Wangpipatwong et al. (2008) Using e-government websites increase my interaction with
governments.
Every use of e-government gives me benefit.
Original items developed for the
purpose of this study
Perceived Ease of Use
(PEOU)
I believe interacting with ...web site would be a clear and understandable process.
I would find……web site to be flexible to interact with.
Carter and Belanger (2005) Learning how to use e-government website to access
government services is easy for me
I find using e-government website to access government services easy to use
Al-Hujran et al.
(2015)
It would be easy to find the information in government website Original items developed for the
purpose of this study When I face trouble in using e-government website I get a
quick response form the support center.
E-government websites provide suitable support when needed.
Government online service is easier than the traditional way
Original items developed for the
purpose of this study
53 (face to face)
Trust of Internet (TOI)
The Internet has enough safeguards to make me feel comfortable using it to transact personal business with government agencies.
I feel assured that legal and technological structures adequately protect me from problems on the Internet.
The Internet is now a robust and safe environment in which to transact with government agencies.
Belanger and Carter (2008)
Trust of Government
(TOG)
I think I can trust government agencies.
government agencies can be trusted to carry out online transactions faithfully
I trust government agencies keep my best interests in mind In my opinion, government agencies are trustworthy
Belanger and Carter (2008)
The government protects individual privacy via website. Wang and Lo (2013) E-government website has enough safeguards (e.g. security
policy) to make me feel comfortable using it to access government services
Modified to “Government website is secured and the security system not easy to hack.”
Al-Hujran et al.
(2015)
Online communication with governments will increase my trust in government.
Original item developed for this
study
Perceived Corruption
(PC)
Using government online services increase the transparency of the whole system.
Make boundaries of responsibility and actions highly visible
Singh et al.
(2010)
I believe that government online services make boundaries of responsibility more easily recognized.
I believe that government online services make it easier to see that government is doing the job it is supposed to do.
I believe that government online services increase the honesty
Original items developed for the
purpose of this study
54 of government information and services.
Government website provides clear policy and regulation for using the services.
Social Influence
(SI)
People who are important to me think that I should use e-government services.
SI2 People who influence my behavior think I should use e-government services.
People who are in my social circle would think that I should use e-government.
Venkatesh et al.
(2003)
My parents influence my decision to use e-government services.
Brothers / sisters influence my decision to use e-government services.
Husband / wife influence my decision to use e-government services.
Son / daughter influence my decision to use e-government services.
Friends influence my decision to use e-government services.
People who are in my social circle would influence my trust in government.
People who are in my social circle would influence my perception of e-government usefulness.
Original items developed for the
purpose of this study
Behavioral Intention to
Use E-government
(BI)
I intend to use the e-government website to access government services frequently
I predict that I should use the e-government website to access government services in the future
Al-Hujran et al.
(2015)
I intend to use government website as needed. Wang and Lo (2013) I would use e-government service only because it is mandatory. Original item
developed for the purpose of this
study
55 All of the constructs in the survey were measured using a series of statements. These statements consist of close-ended questions, which mean that respondents have to choose the answers from the options (mini responses). This technique helps to elicit more comprehensive answers. These statements were measured by 5-point Likert scale (from 1 at strongly disagree, to 5 at strongly agree). The measurement scales used in this study were originally created in English. However, this study focuses on the citizens of Saudi Arabia and the first language there is Arabic. Thus, the survey was translated into Arabic to ensure that that the meaning and the measurement items are clear and easy to understand for the respondents. The final version of the Arabic survey was reviewed by four Arabic native speakers (one PhD student and three MBA students). The reason for reviewing the Arabic version was to ensure the linguistic integrity and that the Arabic measurement items carry identical meaning to the English version of the statements. The questionnaire was then processed using an online survey tool, which is Google Forms (an online tool to gather information). The reason for using online survey is because of the fact that it makes it easy to reach the largest number of Saudi citizens from different geographic areas across the country. The Google Forms tool was adopted in this study because it is easy to understand for respondents and easy to deal with.
Moreover, this tool contains an option that makes it possible to determine the mandatory questions. In other words, the respondents cannot submit the questionnaire unless mandatory questions were fully answered.
Accordingly, this contributes to reducing the possible error and the missing data. Before the survey was distributed, a pilot study was conducted using the questionnaire prepared by Google. The following section discusses more details about the pilot study.