Development and Validation of the Information Behavior Measurement Scale in the Crisis

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Assistant Professor, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran.

10.22091/stim.2021.6466.1511

Abstract

Aim: Information and communication behavior of people in the health crisis plays a crucial role in crisis management and affects public perception and interpretation of crises. One of the research gaps is the lack of tools to study the information behavior of the health crisis in Iranian society. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to create and validate a crisis information behavior questionnaire in Iranian society with an emphasis on public crises.
Methodology: This research is of mixed type (qualitative and quantitative) which has been designed with the tool-making approach. The present study population was citizens of Ahvaz. Four hundred and ten people participated in this study. Questionnaire construction methods such as apparent validity, content, and confirmatory factor analysis were used to assess the validity of the structure. Cronbach's alpha was also used to examine the internal consistency of the factors.
Findings: In order to evaluate the content validity of the Information Behavior Questionnaire in Crisis, we asked twenty-one university professors to comment on the relevance of each item on a scale of 1 to 4. Quantitative I-CVI and S-CVI indices were extracted from their comments. The impact score index for the apparent validity of all items was an acceptable value of more than 1.5, and for the content validity index, the optimal value scale was 0.92. In load factor, all factors were confirmed with a good explanation in factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha for all factors was acceptable from 0.7 to 0.9. The S-CVI value for the whole questionnaire was calculated at 0.92, which seems to be desirable for the whole scale. I-CVI value was also obtained above 0.79. All items in this questionnaire have a good relationship with the structure, and according to experts, the items measure the same purpose for which they were designed. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the construct validity of this questionnaire. Perfect fit and incremental fit indices for the developed structural model indicate the appropriate fit of the model with the experimental data. The values obtained for fitting the model to the experimental data are acceptable, and this indicates that the structural model developed by the items and their related structures have a good fit with the data.
In factor analysis, all factors were confirmed with a reasonable explanation, and Cronbach's alpha for all factors was acceptable from 0.7 to 0.9.
Conclusion: The results indicate that there are four main factors of information behavior in a crisis. Findings of this study, which were performed using confirmatory factor analysis and using the research background on crisis information behavior identified four factors: health crisis information seeking, health crisis information sharing, media credibility, and orientation towards health crisis information. The scale designed to study the information behavior of the Iranian community in times of health crisis is considered appropriate and recommended for its use to measure information behavior during health crises.
 

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Sciences and Techniques of Information Management
Volume 8, Issue 2
July 2022
Pages 427-454

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