Producing a Questionnaire for a User Survey on Anshin with Information Security for Users without Technical Knowledge

An shin is a Japanese term that indicates the sense of security. Traditional research on security has been based on the assumption that users would feel An shin when provided with objectively secure systems. In this research we investigate users\´ subjective sense of security, which we call An shin in Japanese. We have conducted user surveys on An shin with the users of information security technology using factor analysis. With factor analysis, a questionnaire needs to have a large enough set of question items to deduce factors. Previous questionnaires did not reflect feedback from users without technical knowledge on information security. Accordingly we produced a new questionnaire, to reflect feedback from the users without technical knowledge, using brainstorming and the KJ method. We conducted a Web survey with nine hundred thirty-seven subjects with the newly produced questionnaire and extract the factors of An shin. As the result of the factor analysis, we found three factors: "Cognitive Trust," "Familiarity" and "Reputation".