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“in our health-conscious society, viruses of any type are an enemy. Just as proper diet, exercise and preventative health care can add years to your life, prudent and cost-effective anti-virus strategies can minimize your exposure to computer viruses” (Symantec, 1999)

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Questionnaire design

In order to test my hypotheses, a questionnaire was used. The questionnaire was created using “Google Docs-Form”. The use of Google Form allows for easier data gathering and distribution. The reason for this is that it creates a link, which can easily be copied and pasted on e-mails or bulletin boards. Once respondents filled in the survey, Google will progressively updated the data on a spreadsheet. Therefore, data input mistakes are very unlikely in this case. Other responses are paper-based because I wanted to take advantage of the high traffic of places such as libraries and university lecture halls. This allowed me to gather a large number of responses in a short time.
The questionnaire was developed in two languages: English and in Italian. English allows more global respondents to participate in the survey. Italian facilitates responses in my personal environment.
Variables are measured mostly by a 5-item Likert scale. Since respondents are hardly enthusiastic in joining surveys I avoided the 7-items scale because it slows down filling out the questionnaire. The basic format is therefore: 1 Strongly disagree, 2 Disagree, 3 Neither agree nor disagree, 4 Agree, 5 Strongly Agree.
Some respondents may be not familiar with some names or concepts within the questionnaire; but all computer users are potential consumers of an antivirus company since in the future they may have to make decisions for the security of their computer. This process would be tortuous for them, but they would have to make their considerations and make a rational decision according to their low or zero-knowledge. Their answers represent an important component of my research as do those of expert users. A short description of the questionnaire and its aims were provided at the beginning of the form, since it was important to me that the respondents felt free to make their choices.
I included three demographical queries at the beginning of the questionnaire: gender, age and profession. Profession was divided into 4 categories: student, employee, professional or other. These aspects are used to describe the sample characteristics (5.5.2) and filter the sample to test my hypotheses based on a particular segment.
The segmentation between the expert and non-expert user is a core point. The beginning of the questionnaire poses 4 queries to understand the degree of expertise of the respondent. These include a self-evaluation of his general expertise and the selection of known antivirus programs. Paragraph 5.5.2 explains how I interpreted these answers and successively identified the two clusters.
The contribution of each question in testing each singular hypothesis is as follows:
- The general perception of the antivirus, its activity levels (H1-b) and the resulting computer slowdowns (H1-a) are measured in question 5 and 6. Both are multiple choice questions with four items.
- The independent variables “Ease to use” (H2-a), “lightness” (H2-b) and “quality of graphic interface” (H2-c) are investigated in question 7a-b-c with a 5 point semantic differential scale.
- The Update process (H3) is studied in question 8 with a five point Likert scale.
- The assigned importance of innovative protection (H4) such as P2P protection, Instant Messaging protection and registry start-up protection is tested in question 9-a-b-c with the Likert 5 point scale.
- The different tools of technical support (H5-b) and their relative perceived effectiveness are examined in question 10a-b-c-d-e (Likert 5Ps). The costs of the technical support (H5-a) are studied in questions 11 and 12-a-b-c (Likert-5).
- The relationship between IT expertise, gender, loyalty towards an antivirus (H6, H7) is investigated in question 13 with a Likert 5 points scale.
- The relationship between IT expertise and “industry leaders”, “second tiers” or “followers” usage (H8-a) is studied in question 14 with a multiple choice method. The relation between IT expertise and the likelihood to switch from a segment of antivirus to the others (H8-b,c) is studied in question 17.
- Attitudes towards freeware and shareware software and the relationship with the level of IT expertise (H10-a,b) are studied in question 18 by three queries. A short remark that explains the differences between the two software categories is provided. The scale of measurement is Likert 5 point scale. The reliability of the answers is strengthen by question 15 which asks if the user is currently paying for the antivirus. A disturbing element is given by the possibility that the consumer is not paying because he’s using pirated software. Question 16 (true/false) investigates the user attitude towards pirated software. (H13)
- Question 18c investigates the awareness of freeware (H11).
- Consumer perceptions over the all-in-one suites (H9-a,b,c) is investigated in questions 19 and 20 by 3 queries, answerable through a Likert 5 points scale.
- The role of the consumer price sensitivity and the different perspectives (if they exist) between expert (H12-a) and non expert users (H12-b) are examined in question 21.

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