Understanding user motivation for evaluating online content: a self-determination theory perspective

In a digital society, people have access to all kinds of electronic information as online users. They have also contributed various content for exchanging ideas in the online community, which has not only extended the traditional knowledge sharing channels, but has also led to concerns about content quality and reliability. The literature suggests that user involvement in collaboratively evaluating the quality of online content for an online community is likely to be an effective means to ease these concerns. However, the understanding of users’ intention to be willing to take part in evaluating online content is still limited. Based on self-determination theory, this study proposes a research model to understand the extrinsic motivation of the user intention. The research model was tested using data collected from 303 participants who were recruited from online communities. The results show that three types of extrinsic motivation, namely, identified motivation, introjected motivation and external motivation, play important role in user intention of collaboratively evaluating online content. In addition, the research findings suggest that user satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness, influence different types of extrinsic motivation.