Measuring Trust: The Simpler the Better?

To this date the majority of the existing instruments to measure trustworthiness in an online context are based on Likert scaling [1,3,11]. These however are somewhat restricted in applicability. Statements formed in Likert scaling are typically addressing one specific website. Therefore, adjusting these statements for other websites can be accompanied with a loss of validity. To meet these limitations, we propose to use semantic differential. Research has shown that using semantic differential is appropriate to measure multidimensional constructs [8,12] such as trust. Our novel approach in measuring trustworthiness exceeds Likert based scaling in its effortless application in different online context and its better translatability. After one pre-study and two online-studies with a total of 554 participants we achieved to develop a questionnaire with nine items which is comparable to other existing questionnaires in terms of reliability and internal consistency. But it overcomes the limitation of Likert scale based questionnaire.