Intrinsic and Contextual Data Quality: The Effect of Media and Personal Involvement

Abstract

This chapter introduces the concepts of intrinsic and contextual data quality and presents research results on how individual perceptions of data quality are impacted by media (World Wide Web versus print) and personal involvement with the topic. The author advances four hypotheses, which are tested with a randomized experiment (n=127), dealing with information on cancer. First, subjects perceive reputable information sources as having higher data quality than non-reputable sources. Second, subjects perceive web-based material to be more timely, but less believable and of lower reputation, accuracy and objectivity than printed material. Third, individuals with greater personal involvement will be better discriminators of data quality in viewing reputable and non-reputable cancer information. Fourth, women are better discriminators of data quality in viewing reputable and non-reputable information than men. The first hypothesis was supported and limited support was provided for the second hypothesis.