Research

Instrument Development and Pretest

The instrument used in this research was questionnaire. Items selected for the constructs were mostly adapted from prior studies in order to ensure content validity. Items measuring perceived usefulness, ease of use, credibility, social influence, flow and Behavioral Intention to Use were taken from previous studies involving TAM. The items were modified to make them relevant within the context of Smartphone applications. A 5-point Likert scale with anchors ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” was used for all questions. Questions on demographics characteristics and Smartphone Operating System were included at the beginning of the questionnaire. The survey was administered online through an online tool, Kwik Surveys.

Before conducting the main survey, a pre-test was performed to validate the instrument. The pretest involved 10 respondents who have more than 1 years experience using Smartphone apps. Respondents were asked to comment on the length of the instrument, the format, and the wording of the scales. Therefore, the instrument has confirmed content validity.

Data Collection

The respondents were asked to fill in their responses to the questionnaire with respect to Social media apps such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and Skype. 101 responses were received from web-based questionnaire wherein the order of items was randomized, out of which 94 responses were considered to be fit for analysis. The data collected from 94 responses was analyzed to provide evidence for the validity and reliability of the questionnaire.

Sample Characteristics

Several demographic variables were collected on this sample of 94 respondents. The following charts show distribution characteristics of the sample, by gender, by age, and by the smartphone Operating System.
  

Measurement scales

The completed instrument consisted of two parts. Accordingly, the first part is basic information. This part of questionnaire was used to collect basic information about respondents’ characteristics including gender, age, and OS of the smartphone they use. The second part of questionnaire was developed based on constructs from prior studies with modifications to fit the specific context of the Smartphone applications and subsequently developed from the TAM scales, adapted from various studies. All the constructs in the research model were operationalized using standard scales from past literature. Our research TAM model consisted of 18 items that measured “Perceived Ease of Use” (3 items), “Perceived Usefulness” (3 items), “Social Influence” (3 items), “Flow” (3 items), “Credibility” (3 items) and “behavioral intention to use” (3 items). The response scale for all items was a five-point Likert-scale coded as- 5: Strongly agree; 4: Agree; 3: Neutral; 2: Disagree; 1: Strongly disagree.

Statistical Procedure

Descriptive statistics of the data were observed, followed by factor analysis and linear regression analysis in order to test the hypotheses. The detailed observations from these techniques are discussed in the Observations section.