The Participation Divide Among “Online Experts”: Experience, Skills and Psychological Factors as Predictors of College Students' Web Content Creation

Abstract

This study explored factors that predict online content creation among college students. A Web-based survey revealed that there are differences by gender, race, and age even among this wired group. Drawing from literature on technology adoption, the digital divide, and self-determination theory, this study found that psychological factors–perceived competence and both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations–predict content creation. Among the experience variables, having a computer in the students' own room is associated with content creation when controlling for all other factors. The gender divide disappears when experience, skills, perceived competence, and intrinsic motivation are considered. Finally, a new racial gap emerged; whites are less likely than minorities to participate in the Web even after controlling for all other variables. An earlier version of this paper received an award in the Jung-Sook Lee Student Paper Competition of the Communication and Technology Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication annual conference, Boston, August, 2009. The author would like to thank Sebastian Valenzuela and Dr. Paula Poindexter for their helpful comments.