2013 International Symposium of Quality Management
The 49th Annual Conference of Chinese Society for Quality
A study of e-service quality, Satisfaction and Loyalty
on Children’s Website
Tsuang Kuo
Ju-Peng Shen
Mei-Ling Yang
Department of Business Management, National Sun Yat-Sen University
Abstract
Children increasingly utilize the Internet as primary medium, a source of learning,
entertainment, friendship on Internet and consumer information. But we found the previous
research mainly focused on adults, not children. In other words, there was rare integral
research on website’s interface design, privacy, guideline, and service quality for children. We
integrate e-service quality and characters of children surfing web to formulate a grid for
children website. And this study also explores relationships between satisfaction and loyalty
of children. We collect data from sixth grade students of elementary school with
questionnaires and results show positive relationships between e-service quality, satisfaction
and loyalty. Moreover, the mediator function of satisfaction is observed, as it falls between the
levels of perceived quality and of loyalty. From results, we suggest designers of children
website should pay more attentions to characters of children behaviors on Internet to protect
their rights through a proper service quality of children website.
Keywords: Children Website, e-Service Quality, Satisfaction, Loyalty
1. Introduction
Recently Internet has become an important tool of people and direct affect learning,
consumer behavior, entertainment, community …of our life. Especially, children gain
information no longer from school; they search information, make friends and play online
game on Internet. According to the survey of Taiwan Internet Information Center, they found
who ever used Internet in Taiwan, 15-19 years old occupy 99.45%, 20 -24 years old share
97.24% and less than 12 years old is 55.52%. From the survey the part of less than 12 years
old is getting larger.
As number of children who use Internet is increasing but we found most related
researches are for adults, not children. If the design of website is for children, it should have
proper interface, safety content, privacy protection, caring children physiology…etc. Proper
interface will help children utilize Internet resources effetely.
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2013 International Symposium of Quality Management
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Safety content should avoid problems as sexuality, chat room without monitor, Internet
shopping and charge of online game. Privacy protection is important for children when they
surf on Internet they may be lead to leave their personal privacy on trap website.
From inducted characters of children’s behavior on Internet, we understand how
important the quality of website design for children. This study will start from e-service
quality, then plus the characters of children behavior on Internet to build a children’s website
design / e-service quality grid, and with questionnaires to survey sixth grade students of
elementary school at Kaohsiung to verify the relationship between e-service quality and
loyalty, satisfaction.
2. The characters of children behavior on Internet
As number of children use Internet is getting more than before, but there is rare research
for children [5]. The design of website for children should have proper interface for difference
age, safety content, and privacy protection…etc. We induct prior research to explain what
points are necessary as following.
2.1
Age difference on children’s website
Children of various ages (e.g., 5-6 vs. 7-9 vs. 10-12) differ in their ability to process
information [13]. Young children are limited in their ability to navigate and process
information; as they mature, their ability to process expands. As children get older, they are
able to employ a greater variety of information search and retrieval strategies, which in turn
enhances their learning outcome [8].
2.2
The interface design
Navigational aids provide a means of establishing a user’s position while browsing or
searching for information. Children ease of use has influence on the experience, associations,
impressions, and revisiting behavior of web users [1][4]. Various types of navigational aids
have been suggested and used to prevent cognitive overload and disorientation, such as
backtracking aids, guided tours, bookmarks, history lists, indexes, content lists, and
navigational maps [11].
2.3
Safety content
Kids and commercialism, children below age four or five cannot distinguish commercial
form noncommercial content on television; before age seven or eight, they do not realize that
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purpose of the commercial is to sell products. On television commercials are separated in time
from program content. But on the Internet where ads are not even separated spatially from
noncommercial content. We should expected Internet use to lead to parent-child conflict
around the issue of consumer behavior [9]. On the other side, Sexuality, intergroup relations,
and aggression are clearly important developmental issue in the teen years on Internet. The
research found 10-12 years old children who did easy on Internet chat room involved
sexuality topics. Intergroup relations on Internet will develop their own culture and aggression
will happen with their culture [6]. The supervisors of children website should take
responsibilities to manage these problems [7].
2.4
Privacy protection
Internet sites for children regularly incorporate animation, vivid color, and familiar
characters into their design. The young children are attracted to these features without
understanding the content which may collects personal information before children enter their
homepages [14]. Cai, Gantz, Svhwartz & Wang [2] suggested online operators to seek
parental permission before collecting personal information from children and to post links to
their privacy policy on their homepage and every page where personal information is
collected.
3. e-service quality of children website
3.1
Web service quality
Kaynnama and Black [10] introduced E-QUAL to measure web service quality of online
travel agencies. E-QUAL has seven dimensions: content and purpose, accessibility, navigation,
design and presentation, responsiveness, background, personalization and customization. But
other researchers pointed out E-QUAL included non-Internet dimensions couldn’t measure
web service quality properly. Parasuraman [12] edited E-QUAL and developed e-Core
Service Quality which has 4 dimensions and 22 items would measure web service quality
precisely. The 4 dimensions of e-Core Service Quality are efficiency, fulfillment, system
availability, privacy.
3.2
Children’s website design and web service quality
From previous research of children and Internet, there are web designs, safety content,
and privacy protection, but is not an integral research for children. This study develops a table
from characters of children behaviors on Internet and dimensions of e-Core Service Quality
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2013 International Symposium of Quality Management
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Table 1.
Children website design / e-Service Quality
e-Service
Web design
Efficiency
Age difference
v
Interface
v
Fulfillment
System availability
v
v
Privacy
Safety content
v
Privacy Protection
v
Mark “V”: The items should be focused when design children website.
(table 1). This table will help children website designers and supervisors to notice the items
what children did need.
4. Methodology
4.1
Research framework
Cristobal, Flavian and Guinaliu [3] provided a research framework is a model of
relationship between e-Service Quality, Consumer Satisfaction and Website Loyalty (figure 1).
The model is composite of related literature, Internet shoppers and Internet surfers.
Verifications of SEM (Structural Equation Modeling), (the number of model fit index:
CFI=0.989, GFI=0.988, RMSEA=0.047, Chi-Squared=2.29) are good enough for SEM’s
standards. Our study adopted this model to confirm relationship between e-Service Quality,
satisfaction and loyalty on children website.
Figure 1.
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e-Service Quality, consumer satisfaction and web site loyalty
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2013 International Symposium of Quality Management
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Hypotheses,
H1: Higher quality in website services foster higher levels of user website satisfaction.
H2: Higher quality in website services foster higher levels of website loyalty.
H3: Higher website service satisfaction levels foster website loyalty levels.
4.2
Sample
This study sampled 400 sixth grade students of elementary school at Kaohsiung, Taiwan
from 02/16/2009 to 02/23/2009 and there are 331 valid questionnaires in our data collecting.
4.3
Data analysis
We adopted regression approach to verify our research variables’ relationship. The Beta
of variables’ relationship was directly and positively, as positive relationship between
e-service quality, satisfaction and loyalty. Moreover, the mediator function of satisfaction is
observed, as it falls between the levels of perceived quality and of loyalty (figure 2).
Figure 2 Results of regression approach
5. Results
We can find the results of regression point out children satisfaction is a mediator of
relationship between e-Service Quality and loyalty. It also means the functions of children
website should satisfy children firstly. The functions we described as table 1 are 1.Design of
children website should care children’s age difference and functions of interface; it will help
children learn efficiently. 2. Design of interface should provide useful information to fulfill
children’s requirements. 3. Safety content and privacy protection are essential items for
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2013 International Symposium of Quality Management
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children, otherwise children couldn’t have health Internet environment to utilize.
This study suggested we should pay more attentions to Internet issues of children,
because under age 12 Internet users are getting more. We proposed proper interface design
will help children search information efficiently. Safety content constructs a safety
environment to avoid sexuality issue, improper shopping behavior, charge of online game.
Privacy protection help children keep away from Internet traps. Our study expects to
coordinate e-Service Quality and characters of children behavior on Internet and provide an
integral suggestion for designers and supervisors of children website.
References
[1]
Beasley, R., & Waugh, M. “Cognitive mapping architectures and hypermedia disorientation: An
empirical study,” Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 4,239–255 (1995).
[2]
Cai, X., Gantz, W., Schwartz, N., & Wang, X. “Children's website adherence to the FTC's online
privacy protection rule,” Journal of Applied Communication Research, 31, 4, 346 – 362(2003).
[3]
Cristobal, E., Flavián, C. Guinalíu, M. “Perceived e-service quality (PESQ): measurement
validation and effects on consumer satisfaction and website loyalty,” Managing Service Quality,
Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 317-340. Clave (A) (2007).
[4]
Dias, P., Gomes, M. & Correia, A. “Disorientation in hypermedia environment mechanism to
support navigation,” Journal of Educational Computing Research, 20, 93–117 (1999).
[5]
Geissler, G., Zinkhan, G., & Watson, R. “Web home page complexity on consumer attention,
attitudes and purchase intent,” Journal of Advertising Systems, 32, 69–80 (2006).
[6]
Gross, E. F. “Adolescent Internet use: What we expect, what teens report,” Journal of Applied
Developmental Psychology, 25, 633–649 (2004).
[7]
Jackson, L. A., Zhao, Y., Fitzgerald, H. E., von Eye, A., Harold, R. “Information Technology (IT)
Use and Children’s Psychological Well-Being,” CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR, 11,
755-757 (2008).
[8]
John, D.R. “Consumer socialization of children: A retrospective look at twenty-five years of
research,” Journal of Consumer Research, 26,183–213 (1999).
[9]
Kunkel, D. Children and television advertising. In D. G. Singer & J. L. Singer (Eds.),
“Handbook of children and the media (pp. 375–393),” Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage (2001).
[10] Kaynama, S. A. and C. I. Black, “A Proposal to Assess the Service Quality of Online Travel
Agencies： An Exploratory Study,” Journal of Professional Services Marketing, 21（1）,
pp.63-88. (2000).
[11] Nielsen, J. “Hypertext & Hypermedia (2nd ed.),” Boston, London: Academic Press. (1993).
[12] Parasuraman, A., V.A. Zeithaml and A. Malhotra, “Multiple-Item Scale for Assessing
Electronic Service Quality,” Journal of Service Research, 7, 3, 213-233 (2005).
[13] Piaget, J. The origin of intelligence in children. New York: International University Press (1952).
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[14] Sullivan, T., Norris, C., Soloway, E., & Peet, M. (2000, June). “When kids use the web: A
naturalistic comparison of children’s navigational behavior and subjective preferences on two
www sites,” Paper presented at the Sixth Conference on Human Factors and the Web, Austin,
TX. Retrieved March (2002), from http://www.pantos.org/ts/papers/wkutw/
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兒童網站服務品質與使用者滿意度與忠誠度之探究
郭倉義、沈如鵬、楊梅稜
國立中山大學 企業管理系
摘
要
因電腦與網路的普及，愈來愈多的兒童利用網際網路作為學習、娛樂、消費、交友...
等資訊平台，過去對於網際網路與使用者間的研究，多以成人為研究對象；研究內容較
缺乏對兒童使用網際網路安全、介面設計、個人隱私、兒童使用網際網路的心理健康問
題、網站服務品質…等重要項目的整合研究。本文由網站服務品質構面出發，歸納兒童
使用網際網路的特性，並進一步探究兒童網站服務品質對兒童使用網站之忠誠度與滿意
度的關係。透過問卷對國小學童進行調查，結果顯示兒童網站服務質對兒童使用網站之
滿意度與忠誠度有正向相關；且滿意度具兒童網站服務品質與忠誠度之中介效果。此研
究結果可提供兒童網站設計者注意兒童使用網際網路的特性與應有的網站服務品質，滿
足兒童在網路上的需求，增加兒童再次使用的機會，進而能保護與賦予兒童上網的權益。
關鍵字：兒童網站服務品質、網路服務品質、滿意度、忠誠度
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