Engineering researchers’ data reuse behaviours: a structural equation modelling approach

The purpose of this research is to investigate the factors that influence engineering researchers’ data reuse behaviours.

The data reuse behaviour model of engineering researchers was investigated by using a survey method. A national survey was distributed to engineering researchers in the USA, and a total of 193 researchers responded.

The results showed that perceived usefulness, perceived concerns and norms of data reuse have significant relationships with attitudes toward data reuse. Also, attitudes toward data reuse and the availability of data repositories were found to have significant influences on engineering researchers’ intention to reuse data.

This research used a combined theoretical framework by integrating the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and the technology acceptance model (TAM). The combination of the TPB and the TAM effectively explained engineering researchers’ data reuse behaviours by addressing individual motivations, norms and resource factors.

This research has practical implications for promoting more reliable and beneficial data reuse in the engineering community, including encouraging positive motivations toward data reuse, building community norms of data reuse and setting up more data repositories.

As prior research on data reuse mainly used interviews, this research used a quantitative approach based on a combined theoretical framework and included diverse research constructs which were not tested in the previous research models. As one of the initial studies investigating data reuse behaviours in the engineering community, the current research provided a better understanding of data reuse behaviours and suggested possible ways to facilitate engineering researchers’ data reuse behaviours.