Olaseni Muritala Okunola and Jennifer Rowley
developed the e‐services to support information distribution among citizens, form processing and financial transactions, including online payment for new passports, passport renewal, visa application and processing and the processing of various other entry permits( Kanat and Ozkan 2009).
Despite the potential importance of e‐Government to Nigeria, there is very little research that considers the user experience of e‐Government in Nigeria. One exception is the study conducted by Kazeem( 2011) which raises some serious concerns regarding personal privacy, possibility of fraud and crime, insecure cookies, and unauthorized access to personal information.
3.2 Research approach
This study adopted a quantitative, survey‐based research design, in order to identify the factors that contribute to the user experience of e‐Government services and to develop a measurement scale of the user experience of e‐Government. A quantitative approach is regarded as useful for profiling a situation and investigating the relationships between variables( Oppenheim 1992). In addition, an online questionnaire based survey was particularly appropriate for this study since potential respondents are scattered across the globe and given the potential diversity of the population a reasonably large sample was judged to be necessary( Cresswell 2009).
3.3 Questionnaire design
A questionnaire is a research instrument that contains a series of systematically placed questions in order to extract the desired responses from the respondents and to measure the research variables( Oppenheim 1992). In order to identify the key factors to be included in the questionnaire for this study and their associated items, a database of items used by a wide range of previous studies, including those in the technology adoption, diffusion of innovation, customer satisfaction and service quality traditions was collated. Duplicates of items were eliminated and minor variants consolidated. The process was made easier by the extent of re‐use or adaption of items from earlier studies, by previous researchers. Items were clustered under factors. Items were selected and adapted in accordance with the context of the study, the NIS. Table 1 shows the variables included in the questionnaire, together with the number of items included to measure each variable and the prior research that has informed the inclusion of the variable and the design of the items or questionnaire statements. These items were framed as statements with accompanying 5‐point Likert scales( 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree). Closed questions, with categories to suit the research and where appropriate, taking into account previous research were developed to collect demographic data including gender, age, education, income, employment sector, abode( country of permanent residence), and localisation( rural or urban dwellers). Questions were also included on previous experience with information technologies and with e‐Government services.
The online survey was designed in such a way that respondents could not proceed to other pages of the questionnaire without completing all of the questions on the current page; this helped to minimize any potential problems with missing data. In addition, the questionnaire screened out the participant if they have never used the NIS e‐services. The questionnaire was piloted to remove any inconsistencies and to confirm the wording, structure and design of the questionnaire. Piloting also offered insights into the responses to the questionnaire and its comprehensibility( Oppenheim 1992).
3.4 Data collection and profile of respondents
A questionnaire‐based online survey was conducted using an online survey website to capture data. The online survey was made available for nine weeks and respondents directed to the survey by e‐mail. An initial and two reminder e‐mails were sent to each identified respondent. Respondents were identified and contacted via snowball sampling. 351 completed questionnaires were returned.
All respondents confirmed that they had used the NIS website. The sample was split 50:50 with regards to gender and place of residence( Nigeria v Other). Of the respondents not living in Nigeria, the largest groups were living in United Kingdom( 22.5 %), United States( 9.1 %) and Canada( 4.3 %). All respondents were in the age range of 18 to 65 years and were fairly evenly distributed between age categories. Education levels varied, but the sample was relatively well educated, with 67 % having a Bachelor’ s degree or above, 17 % having a Higher Diploma and 9 % having a Diploma. In terms of employment status, the distribution was: public sector
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