The Impact of Gender and Locus of Control Differences on Hyperlinked Content Used

Abstract

Expected content and serendipitous hyperlinked content are common in Wikipedia articles and may motivate users to either solve or explore problems. This study aimed to understand the impact of hyperlinked content on the behavioral intention to use Wikipedia articles from the perspectives of different genders and locus of control (LOC). A quantitative survey of 235 respondents was used to assess students’ intentions to use Wikipedia at a certain time based on their usage and behavior. Statistical analysis revealed that hyperlinked expected content significantly influenced users’ behavioral intention for problem-solving, while hyperlinked serendipitous content was significant for problem exploration. Problem-solving is considered as the strongest behavioral intention to use Wikipedia, especially for users to become future users. This study reveals that internal LOC causes males to feel that hyperlinked serendipitous content is important, while females feels more of the importance on hyperlinked expected content. Moreover, only males with external LOC use Wikipedia for problem-solving. This study also suggests that males with internal LOC and females with external LOC use Wikipedia in their fraction time to explore hyperlinked serendipitous content.