NRC - TR - 2009 - 005 Trust Behaviors of Mobile Application Usage - A Formal Experiment Report

A mobile application is a software package that can be installed and executed on a mobile device. Which mobile application is more trustworthy for a user to purchase, download, install, consume or recommend becomes a crucial issue that impacts its final success. This report explores trust of mobile applications based on users’ behaviors. It proposes a conceptual trust model according to trust behavior study. We achieve our model through Principal Component Analysis (PCA), reliability analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) based on data collected from a questionnaire survey. It is indicated that a user’s trust behavior is a multidimensional construct composed of four main aspects: using behavior, reflection behavior, and correlation behavior, as well as management behavior. They are further delineated into thirteen measurable sub-constructs and relate to a number of external factors. The data analysis showed that the questionnaire has positive psychometric properties with respect to model construct validity and reliability. Particularly, the limitations of current empirical study and future work are also discussed.