The research also looks to quantify and prioritize the various types of applications respondents would like to have on an e-government website, and measures their relative levels of trust in transacting with each application, depending on what level of personal information is needed. How is means-ends analysis (see ii) in question 2 above)) used to narrow down the scope of measurement?

The researcher has specifically created a five-point Likert scale to measure the attitudes to means objectives to measure them through factor analysis statistical techniques vs. their ends, or fundamental objectives. Using means-based objectives to guide to overall structure of the questionnaire assumes the decision frame has been defined, and in the context of this study, that frame is the use of electronic government applications.

Discuss briefly, the research design (population & sample, instrument, proposed data collection and analysis etc.) succinctly.

Administered to a respondent base of existing e-government application users via a web-based survey using attitudinal Likert scaling question structure to a total population of 1,000 users with 300 being the target response level best summarizes the methodology succinctly.

4. If you can, make a single suggestion to improve the study. In making your suggestion, work within the existing the document (i.e., accept the research goals, the use of multiattribute method and means-ends analysis, use of a survey method etc.)

What is most troubling about the methodology is that there are no...

Only those citizens already using the online tools are interviewed; there needs to be a rejecter parallel track in this research methodology as well.
5. Judge the potential contribution of this dissertation to research on a scale of 1-5, where 1 is "no contribution" and 5 is a "significant contribution." So as to anchor the scale, list one article from class readings so far which scores a 5.

This is overall a 3, because the methodology cannot be extrapolated over a large base of non-users of e-government users. There is nothing that will come from this study to aide in the recruitment of new users; all this research does is give direction on what to enhance for existing users. It doesn't necessarily widen the value for non-users today. In addition, the Likert scale is fine for interval-level Likert measurement of attitudes, yet to complete a thorough factor analysis over ten times the number of attitudinal questions needs to be asked. In contrast, Electronic Markets and Electronic Hierarchies by Malone, Yates and Benjamin is much more aligned with an evolving dynamic in the IT world, namely the continued growth of private trading exchanges. That is a 4+ article.

References

Kaplan, S. 1997. The words of risk analysis. Risk Analysis 17(4) 407-418.

Keeney, R.L. 1992. Value Focused Thinking. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Keeney, R.L., H. Raiffa. 1993. Decisions with Multiple Objectives, Preferences and Value Tradeoffs. New York: Cambridge University Press.