Dive into a trustworthy trip: Developing a multi-dimensional questionnaire to evaluate trust in autonomous vehicles

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Transportation Psychology
• Robotics

Background:

• Public trust remains a significant barrier to the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs).
• Effective human-AV interaction fundamentally relies on establishing and maintaining user trust.
• Existing research indicates a gap in validated instruments for quantifying trust in AVs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a comprehensive questionnaire for assessing public trust in autonomous vehicles.
• To identify and operationalize key dimensions influencing trust in AVs.
• To provide a reliable measurement tool for future research on AV acceptance.

Main Methods:

• Initial item generation through interviews and brainstorming, followed by refinement using the 'thinking aloud' method.
• Expert review of questionnaire items using Content Validity Index (CVI) and Content Validity Ratio (CVR) for item selection.
• Reliability testing using Cronbach's Alpha with a participant study.

Main Results:

• A 47-item questionnaire was developed, encompassing 3 primary dimensions (personal, social, technical) and 21 sub-dimensions.
• Content validity measures (CVI and CVR) indicated varying levels of agreement across items, with 'personality' scoring high on CVI and several items achieving maximum CVR.
• The overall reliability of the questionnaire was demonstrated as satisfactory, with a Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of 0.93.

Conclusions:

• The study successfully developed and validated a comprehensive instrument for measuring trust in autonomous vehicles.
• This validated questionnaire serves as a valuable tool for researchers investigating factors influencing AV trust and adoption.
• The findings support the use of this instrument in future studies to advance understanding of human-AV interaction and public acceptance.