Cognitive and Social Factors Affecting the Use of Wikipedia and Information Seeking

• Main Author: CHUNG, Siyoung
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2012
• Subjects: Wikipedia; online learning tool; motivation; belief; social influences; information-seeking.; Business; Communication Technology and New Media; Higher Education
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/3317; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/4316/viewcontent/654_3149_1_PB.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, is the preferred choice among resources used by college students to meet their research needs. However, Wikipedia has been criticized for its low information quality, lack of accountability, inconsistency, and vulnerability to vandalism. Despite the warnings and concerns voiced by academia, online learning tools such as Wikipedia will continue their rise as major learning resource in today's classroom. Using a sample of 184 college students, the study proposed theoretical models to test the effects of internal beliefs, motivations, and social influences on Wikipedia use and information-seeking, and further empirically tested those models. The findings of this study suggested that Wikipedia use is driven by internal belief and peer pressure, whereas information-seeking is influenced by belief, motivation, and subjective norms. The implications of the findings for the research and practice are discussed.