Tool, toy, telephone, territory, trade, or treasure of information: a cross-sectional study of Taiwanese students' attitudes toward the Internet

Abstract

The purposes of this study are to investigate different levels of Taiwan students' attitudes toward the Internet according to a 6-T model, and to understand possible factors associated with differences among these attitudes. This study adopts a cross-sectional design to collect data from 1,700 surveys completed by Taiwanese fifth graders, eighth graders, 11^th graders, and college sophomores. Through a confirmatory factor analysis, this study validates the 6-T model and shows that it can help explain the six factors – Tool, Toy, Telephone, Territory, Trade, and Treasure of information – that are critical to Internet attitudes. This study found that the Tool and Toy factors yield the greatest recognition among Taiwan students, while the Trade factor seems to yield the least recognition among all grade groups. The results also indicate that as students grow older, they have increasingly positive attitudes toward the Internet. In addition, students' motivation to use the Internet and their weekend time-on-Internet can predict their attitudes toward the Internet. Implications of these results are also discussed.

Keywords:

• Taiwan students
• attitudes toward the Internet
• cross-sectional comparison
• 6-T model
• confirmatory factor analysis

Acknowledgements

The previous version was presented at the conference, “The Internet Turning 40: The Never-ending Novelty of New Media Research?”, School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, from 17–19 June 2010. This study was supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan, projects No. NSC97-2511-S-009-006-MY3, NSC99-2511-S-009-006-MY3.