The development of an instrument to measure the degree of animation predisposition of agent users

Abstract The study reports on the development and operationalization of a construct that captures an individual’s degree of predisposition towards watching animated films. It is believed that this construct may potentially explicate a person’s perceptions and usage behavior towards animated agents in Microsoft Office applications. Animation predisposition is defined as an individual specific trait that reflects a person’s predisposition towards watching animated films. It is operationalized in form of a four-item Likert type scale, which was found highly reliable and valid. This construct does not correlate with two other individual specific traits: computer playfulness and personal innovativeness in the domain of information technology. As such, it is suggested that animation predisposition is a distinct and independent research construct exhibiting desirable psychometric properties. The analysis demonstrates that the degree of people’s animation predisposition is positively associated with their perceptions of enjoyment with an animated agent in MS Office. The computer users who have a higher degree of animation predisposition attempt to explore an agent’s personalization settings more frequently than those with a lower degree of animation predisposition. Overall, this study offers a new approach to the investigation of an untapped area aiming to improve the quality of the contemporary research on the usefulness and user acceptance of animated agents.

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