| This quantitative quasiexperimental study examined the extent to which web design elements and personal psychographic and demographic attributes correlated with accurate consumer perceptions of online university web site credibility through a survey instrument. The problem is that e-commerce merchants and online universities have credibility issues that are exacerbated by rampant online fraud and web-based diploma mills. This topic is important because consumers are easily deceived and will abandon interaction with web sites when they discover that trust perceptions are inaccurate. The variables examined were chosen because their relationships with online trust formation remain controversial in the literature. Participants included 158 students and employees at a community college in Virginia. Age, gender, Internet experience, trust disposition, people photographs, and accreditation claim did not correlate to overall trust accuracy. Accuracy positively correlated with education, r(156) = .25, p = .002. Disposition to distrust positively correlated with accuracy scores, r(156) = .17, p = .037. Gullibility errors differed between sites without a .edu domain suffix (M = 31.06, SD = 14.88) and sites with a .edu suffix (M = 44.13, SD = 11.58), t(23) = -2.40, p = .025. Incredulity errors for sites without a .edu suffix (M = 62.24, SD = 12.44) differed from sites with a .edu suffix (M = 40.28, SD = 9.89), t(23) = 3.52, p = .002, confirming the importance of a .edu suffix as a trust-builder for online universities. Gullibility errors differed between sites without an academic icon (M = 21.68, SD = 14.86) and with an icon (M = 39.69, SD = 13.27), t(23) = -2.45, p = .022, indicating that gullibility was more common when sites used an academic icon. Similarly, incredulity differed between sites without icon (M = 48.68, SD = 10.42) and with icon (M = 38.38, SD = 12.09), t(23) = 2.24, p = .035. In this study, well-educated individuals and those individuals with high distrust disposition were significantly more accurate in their ratings. Additional research using trust accuracy as a variable may further illuminate superior web credibility evaluation tactics and make valuable contributions to the development of consumer education materials. |
