WHAT DIMENSIONS DISCRIMINATE USERS TO CONSIDER A PRESENTATION WEBSITE TO BE CREDIBLE OR NOT CREDIBLE?

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to configure a credibility assessment function based on students’ perceptions on Websites credibility’s dimensions evaluation. The hypothesis of the study is that there are certain credibility dimensions that better discriminate between Internet users. The investigated target consists of students in the second and third year of study from a Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in Romania. The objectives are: (1) to identify the presentation Websites’ credibility dimensions that better discriminate between students that consider a presentation Website to be credible or not credible; (2) to create a statistical discriminant function that predicts to which of the two groups one user belongs to: those who believe the site is credible and those who believe the site is not credible; (3) to identify dimensions that discriminate between the two groups for two cases – second year of study and third year of study students. For the overall group, the most important dimension is “expertise”. “Ease of use” and “site etiquette” are also important dimensions in discriminating between groups. For second year of study students, the most important discriminator dimension is also “expertise”, followed by “ease of use”. Among the most important discriminating dimensions for third year of study students are “site etiquette” and “ease of use”.

Keywords

• credibility
• discriminant analysis
• dimension
• construct
• Website