Measuring User Beliefs and Attitudes towards Conceptual Models: A Factor and Structural Equation Model

Abstract

This paper presents a tentative model of user beliefs and attitudes towards conceptual models applying the ideas of Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) in a conceptual modeling context. We focus on users perceptions of conceptual model quality and investigate the relations between perceived semantic quality and perceived pragmatic quality measures. Given the growing awareness among researchers and practitioners about the importance of high-quality conceptual modeling, it is surprisingly that there are no formal measures to assess the perceived semantic quality of conceptual schemas. Therefore we address this need and present a robust and validated multi-item measurement instrument to evaluate the perceived semantic quality of conceptual schemas. We followed a rigorous empirical development process to ensure the validity and reliability of the proposed measurement instrument. Once this was accomplished, it was possible to empirically test the proposed user beliefs and attitudes model. The conducted experiment confirmed the proposed relations of the user beliefs and attitudes model. It was shown that perceived semantic quality had a direct effect on beliefs as perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and also indirectly affects the attitudes of conceptual model users.