Purpose

Due to the extreme importance of evaluating the credibility of information available on a huge number of scientific websites, the present research aimed to develop a measurement scale based on a validated questionnaire incorporating the novel conceptualization of the concept credibility by Hovland and Weiss (1951).

Design/methodology/approach

Regarding the descriptive and survey nature of the research, the data were collected based on a stratified random sampling among the 672 students in two different contexts at five top nonmedical universities and, with a one-year interval, at three top medical universities in Iran. High reliability and construct validity were reported by testing the convergent and discriminant validity of the main instrument.

Findings

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) resulted in a scale named SWCRED including eight components and 28 items. Considering path coefficients (?) and t-statistics (t-value), a significant relationship was reported between all components and the main variable of credibility in the final scale at a 99% confidence level (t = 2.57).

Practical implications

Results suggest that the information credibility of scientific websites, especially in the university contexts, can be measured by asking participants to rate how well eight components represent content including ethics, writing style, website appearance, website identity, professional information, accuracy, usability and interaction. The scale has a goodness of fit from the different indices and is of high validity for use in different educational and research settings.

Originality/value

The framework underlying the research has the required quality integrating a set of most important criteria for exploring the credibility evaluation of scientific web information by the students, which is useful for future-related studies.

中文翻译：

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科学网站的信誉评估量表：跨上下文方法的发现

目的

由于评估大量科学网站上可用信息的可信度极为重要，因此本研究旨在基于经过验证的问卷，结合Hovland和Weiss（1951）对概念可信度的新颖概念化，来开发一种测量量表。

设计/方法/方法

关于研究的描述性和调查性，数据是基于分层随机抽样收集的，这些分层抽样是在伊朗的五所顶级非医科大学中的两种不同情况下的672名学生中，以一年为间隔，在伊朗的三所顶级医科大学中进行的。通过测试主要仪器的收敛性和判别有效性，报告了其高可靠性和结构效度。

发现

验证性因素分析（CFA）得出了一个名为SWCRED的量表，包括8个成分和28个项目。考虑到路径系数（？）和t统计量（t值），在99％的置信水平下，最终成分的所有成分与可信度的主要变量之间都报告了显着的相关性（t  = 2.57）。

实际影响

结果表明，可以通过要求参与者对八个成分代表内容的质量进行评估，包括道德，写作风格，网站外观，网站身份，专业信息，准确性，可用性和交互性，从而可以衡量科学网站的信息可信度，尤其是在大学环境中。该量表具有不同指标的拟合优度，并且在不同的教育和研究环境中使用均具有很高的有效性。

创意/价值

研究的基础框架具有所需的质量，并集成了一组最重要的标准，以探索学生对科学网络信息的信誉评估，这对于与未来相关的研究很有用。