Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management

A survey on communications in large-scale construction projects in China

S. Tai Y. Wang C.J. Anumba
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S. Tai Y. Wang C.J. Anumba, (2009),"A survey on communications in large-scale construction projects in
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ECAM
16,2
136
Received February 2008
Revised September 2008
Accepted October 2008
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Engineering, Construction and
Architectural Management
Vol. 16 No. 2, 2009
pp. 136-149
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0969-9988
DOI 10.1108/09699980910938019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0969-9988.htm
A survey on communications in
large-scale construction projects
in China
S. Tai and Y. Wang
School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin,
People’s Republic of China, and
C.J. Anumba
Department of Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University,
Loughborough, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how effective project team communications is one of
the major challenges to a construction project’s success. The success of large-scale construction
projects is critical to Chinese economy. The purposes of the research are to grasp the current status of
communications in large-scale construction projects in China and lay a basis for further research on
project communications.
Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted by postal questionnaire and telephone.
Findings – Through analyzing the data obtained from the survey, the communication problems in
large-scale construction projects in China are exposed. The roots of the problems are summarized as
lack of good communication mechanism, weak organizational structures of construction teams, lack of
uniform standards for construction information, and lack of support for advanced communication
technologies.
Originality/value – The paper presents the directions for further research to improve
communications in large-scale construction projects in China.
Keywords China, Construction works, Communication
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Background
With the globalization of the world economy and rapid development of the Chinese
economy, more and more funds from home and abroad have been poured into the
construction industry. Since 1998, active fiscal policy in which investments are
regarded as important instruments to spur economic growth are adopted by the central
government, the annual social investment in fixed assets is more than £133 billion and
also maintains a growth rate of 10 , 20 per cent.
A significant portion of the investments is used for large-scale construction projects.
Since 1998, more than 1,000 large construction projects that are worth more than £3.3
million individually have been under construction annually, such as Three Gorges
Project, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, West-East Gas Transmission
Project, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project. China’s large-scale construction projects
occupy a very important position in the construction industry and have a direct impact
on the development of the entire national economy. The success of large-scale
 construction projects is not only related to the smooth formation of fixed assets, but Communications
also have to be able to stimulate further growth of the national economy as a whole. in construction
Many large-scale construction projects directly affect people’s quality of life and
security of life, such as irrigation facilities, roads, bridges, quarries, etc. Their projects
importance is self-evident.

The importance of communications in large-scale construction projects 137

The famous futurist of the USA, John Naisbitt, said, “Future competition will be
managerial competition, and the focus of competition among organizations will be
effective communications among the members of the organization and with external
organizations.” Chester Irving Barnard said, “Formal organization is based on three
important elements: members’ willingness to cooperate, common purposes, and
communications.” Communication is the means of an organization to link its members
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and achieve their common objectives. Thus, no communications means no

management. Communications is the core of management and the determining
factor of management efficiency.
For construction project management, because of its decentralized nature that is
caused by geographical distribution of projects participants, the different
responsibilities of various parties, and different time to join the construction teams,
it has highlighted the importance of communication. Communication difficulties or
disorders during the projects process can directly lead to a sharp increase in the
volume of unnecessary expenditure, and also affect the progress and quality of the
project (Anumba et al., 1997, Anumba and Evbuowan, 1999; Higgin and Jessop, 2001).
Therefore, communication is essential to the success of large-scale construction
projects. Since construction project management is a very practical discipline, in order
to grasp the overall situation (such as the channels of communication among the
various participants and the forms of information) of communications in China’s
large-scale construction projects, effectiveness of communication on construction
projects, the impact of procurement methods on communication, it was essential to
conduct a survey on communications in China’s large-scale construction projects.

Surveys on communications in large-scale construction projects in China

Summary of the survey
So far, there have been no surveys on communications in China’s large-scale
construction projects. Thus, the survey can provide a foundation and raw data for the
further research on large-scale construction project communications in China.
Methods. The survey was conducted by a combination of questionnaires and
telephone. Questionnaire survey is a method in which the researchers use a designed
questionnaire to collect information or seek advice from respondents. The biggest
advantage of a questionnaire is that it can break time and space constraints and many
respondents can be investigated at the same time. Considerable time and resources can
be saved. In particular, the introduction of e-mails that be used to send questionnaires
makes the cost more affordable. The data are also easy to analyze quantitatively.
However, the information collected was only in written form, and the vivid, specific
social situations cannot be understood. The researchers had difficulties in
understanding whether the respondents have answered the questions seriously or
just filled the blanks perfunctorily. Furthermore, the respondents are unable to obtain
 ECAM timely guidance and clarifications when they do not understand the questions. Some
16,2 respondents tick arbitrarily, or mark in accordance with the mainstream consciousness
such that information collected could lose authenticity. In addition, the response rate
can be relatively low.
The advantage of a telephone survey is its speed. The overall situation of
construction project communications can be qualitatively understood by telephone.
138 The weakness is that the time for each telephone survey has to be limited, making it
difficult to address complex issues. Also, the information collected is not suitable for
quantitative analysis.
Therefore, it can be seen that the combination of the two methods can be used to
collect information that better reflects the existing situation.
Communications in large-scale construction projects is a very complex issue, and it
is very difficult to understand comprehensively and grasp the whole picture. First,
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there are many participants with different communication channels, and it is almost
impossible to collect all the data on communications. Second, the lifecycle of large-scale
construction projects is very long, and there are different tasks at different stages.
Ever-changing parties who adopt varying forms of communications are required to
complete these tasks making it impossible to collect all the communication information
about all the tasks. Third, each participant is not a person but an organization.
Different organizations have different organizational structures. The different
departments of these organizations communicate with the outside world through
specific individuals. This gives more variables to construction project
communications.
In short, communications in construction projects span time and space, and is a
multi-level, multi-faceted problem. It is impossible to collect all the relevant
information, thus it must be simplified. For a construction project, the largest
information communication volume occurs in the construction phase. So this survey
collected the data about communications during the construction phase only. For the
participants, since there are many players in one large-scale project (the owner, the
main contractor, the designer, the consultants, suppliers, subcontractors, government
agencies, etc.), key parties in a construction project teams were selected (i.e. the
Owners, the Designers and the Contractors).
The Gartner group has identified that the highest level of interaction across
organizations generally occurs between the middle level managers in an organization
(Alshawi and Ingirige, 2003). The middle level managers are thus known as
“knowledge workers”. The interactions between the knowledge workers who will be
working with the available collaboration tools generate the highest potential return on
investment (ROI) for the project. The interactions at various levels are denoted in
Figure 1. For construction projects, the project manager, who is in charge of the project,
is equivalent to the “knowledge workers” in Figure 1. The project managers of the
owners, the designers and the contractors were selected as respondents in this survey.
This study focuses on Chinese large-scale construction projects, projects with more
than £3.3 million in total investment were selected. To obtain the newest status of the
construction project communications, the projects that were under construction or
completed after 2004 were selected. Under existing conditions, the construction
projects that could be contacted were housing construction sector (including large
office buildings, real estate development projects, and public buildings etc.), transport
 facilities (highways, major bridges, and railway projects, etc.), power related projects Communications
(including thermal power plants, electricity transmission project, and electricity in construction
transformation substations, etc.), and water projects (mainly hydroelectric power
stations), etc. projects
Questionnaire design. Taking into account the degree of tension in the work of
employees and their working environments, the number of questions was limited, and
open-ended questions were avoided. The information solicited by open-ended 139
questions was covered by telephone surveys. It should be noted that the questionnaire
design was based on a completed telephone survey involving 13 people (four owners,
two designers, and seven contractors). Through telephone conversations with them
(about 20 minutes each), the state of communications in large-scale construction
projects was established. A pilot survey was used to refine the questionnaire design.
The questionnaire includes blank spaces and multiple-choice questions. The blanks
collected data on the project titles, project types, the roles of respondents,
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communication channels and information forms. The multiple-choice questions dealt

with the data about the performance of construction projects (such as schedule, cost
and quality of the projects, etc.) and communication effectiveness (such as
communication accuracy, timeliness, completeness of information, information
overload, and the lack of information, etc.).
In terms of content, the questionnaire was divided into the following parts:
.
The first part was on the performance of construction projects included three
issues, namely: schedule, cost, and incidents of quality and safety on the
construction projects.
.
The second part concerned the status of construction project communications,
included three issues, namely: the procurement methods for the construction
projects, communication channels among the parties as well as the
communication medium.
. The third part was about the effectiveness of communication. The aim of
communications is to influence or inspire others to act. Therefore, the perception of
the receiver on the information received can be used to assess the effectiveness of
communication. The perception of the receiver can be divided into five aspects,
namely: information overload, lack of information, accuracy, timeliness, and
completeness of information. The survey questionnaire is shown in the Appendix.
Data collection. The survey respondents were based on a targeted sample of project
managers working on large-scale construction projects. This was based on previous
contacts and interactions with them in a professional setting. All the respondents had

Figure 1.
Communications at
various levels between
organizations
 ECAM more than eight years of experience and so could be relied on to provide useful and
16,2 valid data.
Before sending out the questionnaire, the respondents were contacted by telephone.
A total of 36 questionnaires were sent out, and 32 valid replies were returned. The
results are considered reflective of the current status of communications in large-scale
construction projects in China.
140
Data description
Profile of the survey. The survey involved a total of 21 projects: seven housing projects,
five transportation projects, six power related projects, two water projects, and the
remaining one is the industrial processing project (see Figure 2).
For the participants, nine were from Owners, five from Designers, and 18 from
Contractors, as shown in Figure 3. What needs to be pointed out is that they were
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classified by their roles instead of specific firms. For example, Owner and Contractor
may belong to one firm under “Build-own-operate” projects.
The surveyed projects were classified into three categories according to their
procurement methods (i.e. traditional, design-build (DB), and build-operate-transfer
(BOT)). The distribution is shown in Figure 4. It is largely a reflection of the
procurement methods of China’s large-scale construction projects.
Performance of construction projects. It is hard to evaluate the performance of a
construction project since there is no unified measure. Based on the relative literatures,
the survey assessed a construction project from three aspects (schedule, cost and

Figure 2.
Types of construction
projects surveyed

Figure 3.
Participants surveyed
 Communications
in construction
projects

141

Figure 4.
Procurement methods of
the surveyed projects

incidents of quality and safety). The weights of schedule, cost, and incidents of quality
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and safety were 0.3, 0.3, and 0.4 respectively. This may be limited, but it largely reflects
the general situation. Each aspect had five options (a, b, c, d, and e) to be chosen by the
respondents, and the score for each option ranged from 1-5 (with 1 being the worst, 2
being poor, 3 being average, 4 being good, and 5 being the best).
The performance score of a project (pi) was obtained using the following formula:
pi ¼ 0.3 *xi þ 0.3 *yi þ 0.4 *zi (xi, yi, and zi were the scores of schedule, cost, and
incidents of quality and safety of a project respectively given by a respondent.)
The average score for the construction projects was 3.35, while the highest was 4.23,
and the lowest 2.87.
Effectiveness of construction project communications. Communication is a process of
information exchange, and its aim is to influence the receiver’s behaviors and ideas.
Effectiveness of communications is an indicator to measure the result of
communications. Therefore, the perception of the receivers on the information
received is used to assess the effectiveness of communications. The perception of the
receivers was divided into five aspects, namely: information overload, the lack of
information, accuracy, timeliness, and completeness of information.
In 1996, Thomas’ research team developed a communications effectiveness score.
An objective matrix was used to transform data from the questionnaire into a
communications effectiveness score. The indicators and its weight drawn by Thomas
were accuracy (0.21), timeliness (0.14), completeness (0.12), procedures (0.19), barriers
(0.18) and understanding (0.16) (Thomas, 1996). Based on Thomas’ research, the
weights of the five indicators were 0.2, 0.19, 0.24, 0.19, and 0.18 respectively. Each
aspect had five options ranged from 1-5 (with 1 being the worst, 2 being poor, 3 being
average, 4 being good, and 5 being the best).
The communication score of a project (ci) was obtained using the following formula:
ci ¼ 0.2 *di þ 0.19 *ei þ 0.24 *fi 0.19 *gi þ 0.18 *hi (di, ei, fi, gi, and hi were the scores of
information overload, the lack of information, accuracy, timeliness, and completeness
of information of a project respectively given by a respondent.)
The average score of effectiveness of communications was 3.24, while the highest
was 4.08, and the lowest 2.67.

Data analysis
Communication channels in large-scale construction projects in China. According to
the survey, the key communication channel in China’s large-scale construction
 ECAM projects is face-to-face meeting (FTF); 55 percent of information communication is
16,2 completed by FTF, with 26 per cent through letters, while telephone and fax had 10
per cent and 5 per cent respectively. E-mail and computer networks were seldom
used (see Figure 5).
Although all the key members of large-scale construction project teams set up their
own internal computer network, they are unwilling to interconnect each other due to
142 distrust. The legal standing of e-mail is less than that of letters in China. This is one of
the reasons why e-mail and computer networks are seldom used.
Only one project set up a computer network that could be used by all the members
of project team. The procurement method of the project was build-operate-transfer
(BOT) with the Contractor being the financier and a key member of the Owner’s
organization. Therefore, the procurement method can affect the relationships within a
project team, thus affecting communications.
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Communication medium. According to the survey, some design firms only provided
paper-based drawings so as to protect their intellectual property. This constitutes a big
obstacle to electronic communications. Due to legal considerations, conflicts of interest,
and habits, information originally generated in electronic form is often printed out in a
paper medium. Therefore, paper is still the key medium of construction
communications, as shown in Figure 6.
Impact of communications on construction projects. The replies were ranked
according to the effectiveness of communications. The first ten replies (i ¼ 1, 2, 3 . . . ,
10) were grouped as Group A, and the last ten (i ¼ 23, 24, 25 . . . , 32) were Group B. The

Figure 5.
Communication channels
in the surveyed projects

Figure 6.
Communication medium
 average of communication effectiveness (C) and performance of the construction Communications
projects (P) of the two groups were calculated by the following formulas respectively:
in construction
X
10 X
10 X
32 X
32 projects
ci Pi Ci Pi
i¼1 i¼1 i¼23 i¼23
Ca ¼ ; Pa ¼ ; Cb ¼ ; Pb ¼
10 10 10 10 143
The results are as follows: for Group A, the average of communication effectiveness
Ca ¼ 3.49, and the performance of the construction projects Pa ¼ 3.52. For Group B,
Cb ¼ 2.93 and Pb ¼ 3.20.
From (Ca-Cb)/Cb ¼ 19.1 percent, (Pa-Pb)/Pb ¼ 10.0 percent, it can be concluded that
an improvement of communications by 19.1 percent will enhance the performance of
the construction projects by 10.0 percent. In other words, the performance of
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construction is closely positive correlation with the effectiveness of communications.

Impact of procurement methods on construction projects. Seven of the 32 replies were
BOT contracts, 23 were traditional, while two were DB. The number of DB projects was
too small and could be disregarded. BOT replies are grouped as Group C, and the
traditional are grouped as Group D. The average of communication effectiveness (C) of
the two groups was calculated by the following formulas respectively:
X
7 X
7 X
23 X
23
Ci Pi Ci Pi
i¼1 i¼1 i¼1 i¼1
Cc ¼ ; Pc ¼ ; Cd ¼ ; Pd ¼
7 7 23 23
The results are as follows: for Group C, the average of communication effectiveness
Cc ¼ 3.52. For Group D, the average of communication effectiveness Cd ¼ 2.93.
From (Cc-Cd)/Cd ¼ 10.7 percent, it can be concluded that communication
effectiveness of BOT project is better than that of traditional by 10.7 per cent. In
other words, effectiveness of communications is affected directly by the procurement
method of construction projects because procurement method determines the interest
relationships among the key participants.

Reasons for communication problems in large-scale construction projects

in China
From the survey, there are many reasons for the communication problems:
.
Lack of good communication mechanisms. Lack of appropriate mechanisms to
inspire the participants to communicate actively is the primary problem. Because
there are conflicts of interest among the participants and the rights and
obligations of each party are defined by the contract, in order to maximize its
own interests, each party tends to keep the information and there is no incentive
to communicate. To prevent violations of its own interests, each tends to treat
information as “confidential” rather than “sharing”. Thus, as the survey shows,
each party is unwilling to interconnect their computer networks. In fact, through
the use of advanced communication technologies to improve communication,
added value can be created (Higgin and Jessop, 2001). Due to the lack of “extra
benefits” sharing mechanism, the participants do not like to communicate with
the other actively.
 ECAM .
Weak organizational structure of construction team. The traditional form of
16,2 construction team is a linear structure. There are many middle-level workers
from the Owner at the top to the lowest production worker. Before reaching the
intended recipients, messages communicated have to go through a long and
tortuous process of transformation. This leads to information distortion (see
Figure 7).
144 . Lack of uniform standards for construction information. With the growing size of
projects and the increasing complexity of technology, large-scale construction
projects often involve hundreds of professionals. Furthermore, hundreds of firms
may join the construction team at different times. Firms may have a different
understanding and experience of the same construction projects, and the same
construction information may have different forms of expression. Lack of
uniform information standards across the whole industry is another obstacle to
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communications.
.
Lack of support for advanced communication technologies. As a labor-intensive
industry with relatively low levels of knowledge, the application of new
information technologies has lagged behind compared with the manufacturing
industry. Despite the introduction of computer technology in the building
industry in the 1960s, it is mainly used for the purpose of generating information,
for example finite element analysis and CAD. The technologies to transfer and
share construction information have not caught the attention of the industry in
China.

Figure 7.
Communication paths of
traditional construction
projects
 Summary and conclusions Communications
With the development of China’s economy and the growing size of construction in construction
projects, the importance of communication is increasing. By a combination of
questionnaires and telephone, a survey on communications in large-scale construction projects
projects in China was conducted. The survey collected information on channels and
media for communication, procurement methods, and communication effectiveness on
large-scale construction projects. 145
According to the survey, 55 per cent of information communication is completed by
face-to-face meeting (FTF), with 26 per cent through letters, while telephone and fax
had 10 per cent and 5 per cent respectively. With regard to communication medium, 79
per cent of the information is paper-based, with 13 per cent audio, while only 8 per cent
is electronic. Through analyses, it is estimated that an improvement of
communications by 19.1 per cent will enhance the performance of the construction
projects by 10.0 per cent. It was also evident that the procurement method can affect
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the relationships within a project team, thus affecting communications.

Based on the survey, the communication problems and their roots can be clearly
identified. This paper attributes the communication problems to lack of good
communication mechanisms, weak organizational structures of project teams, lack of
uniform standards for construction information, and lack of support for advanced
communication technologies. Some of these are inter-related and need to be addressed
in an integrated way in order to improve communications.
In order to improve communications in large-scale construction projects in China,
Chinese construction industry needs to consider the practices in advanced countries
and develop solutions based on the realities of construction industry. In particular, it
should explore the following:
.
Establish mechanisms for sharing the savings resulting from improved
communications.
.
Make full use of existing IT tools to explore the possibility of new organizational
forms for the construction project teams.
.
Establish a uniform communication standard for construction information
across the whole construction industry.
.
Resolve the legal issues in electronic communications early in the project
lifecycle.

There is considerable scope to improve communications in large-scale Chinese

construction projects. Addressing the issues enlightened in this paper will help the
industry to do this.
References
Alshawi, M. and Ingirige, B. (2003), “Web-enabled project management: an emerging paradigm
in construction”, Automation in Construction, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 349-64.
Anumba, C.J., Baron, G. and Duke, A. (1997), “Information and communications technologies to
facilitate concurrent engineering in construction”, BT Technology Journal, Vol. 15 No. 3,
pp. 199-207.
Anumba, C.J. and Evbuowan, N.F.O. (1999), “Taxonomy for communication facets in concurrent
life-cycle design and construction”, Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering,
Vol. 14, pp. 37-44.
 ECAM Higgin, G. and Jessop, N. (2001), Communication in the Building Industry, Tavistock
Publications, London.
16,2 Thomas, S. (1996), “An assessment tool for improving project team communications”, PhD
dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin.

Further reading
146 Cheng, M. and Tsai, M. (2003), “Reengineering of construction management process”, Journal of
Construction Engineering and Management, January/February, pp. 105-14.
Cleveland, A.B. Jr (1999), “Harvesting the value of information”, Journal of Management in
Engineering, July/August, pp. 37-42.
Cole, T. (2000), Electronic Communication in Construction, Thomas Telford, London, pp. 1-25,
65-108, 139-167.
Dawood, N. and Akinsola, A. (2002), “Development of automated communication of system for
Downloaded by University of Vermont At 20:18 17 January 2015 (PT)

managing site information using internet technology”, Automation in Construction, Vol. 11

No. 5, pp. 557-72.
Irtished, A. and Jeffrey, S.R. (1995), “IT and integration in the construction industry”,
Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 13, pp. 789-892.
Kang, L.S. and Paulson, B.C. (2002), “Adaptability of information classification system for civil
works”, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, No. 12, pp. 10-12.
Kashiwagi, D.T. (1999), “The construction delivery system of the information age”, Automation
in Construction, No. 8, pp. 417-25.
Kong, S.C.W., Li, H., Hung, T.P.L., Shi, J.W.Z., Castro-Lacouture, D. and Skibniewski, M. (2004),
“Enabling information sharing between e-commerce systems, construction, material
procurement”, Automation in Construction, Vol. 13 No. 2004, pp. 261-76.
Mak, S. (2001), “Model of information management for construction using information
technology”, Automation in Construction, No. 10, pp. 257-63.
Mohamed, S. (2003), “An empirical investigation of users’ perceptions of web-based
communication on a construction project”, Automation in Construction, Vol. 12 No. 1,
pp. 43-53.
Mustafa, A. and Bingunath, I. (2003), “Web-enabled project management: an emerging paradigm
in construction”, Automation in Construction, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 349-64.
Nguyen, T. (2001), “Computer-generated building data: topological information”, Journal of
Computing in Civil Engineering, October, pp. 268-73.
Schulz, R.C. (2000), “Information systems in building”, Design & Construction, No. 4, pp. 25-8.
Underwood, J. and Alshawi, M. (1997), “Data and process models for the integration of estimating
and valuation”, Microcomputers in Civil Engineering, Vol. 12 pp. 393-405.
 Appendix. Questionnaire on communications of China’s large-scale construction Communications
projects
Dear Sir/Madam, in construction
projects
We are the research team on communications of China’s large-scale construction projects from
Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT). The goal of the survey is to grasp the status of large-scale
construction projects communications. Please take your time to answer the following as
objectively as possible. 147
We will be very careful not to disclose any unnecessary information. Your participation is
greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Research Team on Construction project Communications of HIT

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Project name: ______________________________(optional)

1. What type of project is this?
a. Housing project
b. Transportation project
c. Water project
d. Power project
e. Others

2. What is your role in the construction team?

a. Owner
b. Designer
c. Contractor

3. On the whole, compared with the plan, actual schedule of the project is ( )
a. Ahead
b. Almost same
c. Lagged by 10%
d. Lagged by 10% , 20%
e. Lagged by 20% þ

4. On the whole, compared with the plan, actual cost of the project is ( )
a. The same or less
b. Over by 10 per cent
 ECAM c. Over by 10 , 20 per cent
16,2 d. Over by 20 , 30 per cent
e. Over by 30 per cent þ

5. On the whole, compared with similar projects, accidents of quality and safety of the
148 project is ( )
a. A lot less
b. Less
c. Almost the same
d. More
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e. Much more

6. Procurement method of the project is ( )

a. Design-bid-construction (traditional)
b. Design-build
c. Build-operate-transfer

7. Out of 100 times that you communicate with other parties, how many times is with:
Face-to face meetings __________________________
Letters_______________________________________
Telephone____________________________________
Fax_________________________________________
E-mail_______________________________________
Computer networks____________________________

8. What is the percentage of the following construction information forms in your daily
communications?
Audio_______________________________________
Paper-based__________________________________
Electronic____________________________________

9. In general, can you access to external information needed timely?

a. Usually
b. Sometimes
c. Hard to say
d. Seldom
e. Never
 10. In general, is the external information you received clearly? Communications
a. Very clearly in construction
b. Somewhat clearly
projects
c. Hard to say
d. Not too clearly 149
e. Not clearly at all

11. In general, is the external information you received completely?

a. Very completely
b. Somewhat completely
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c. Hard to say
d. Not too completely
e. Not completely at all

12. In general, do you always receive unnecessary information?

a. Not at all
b. Seldom
c. Hard to say
d. Somewhat
e. Always

13. In general, do you always feel that the needed external information receive
unnecessary information cannot be accessed?
a. Not at all
b. Seldom
c. Hard to say
d. Somewhat
e. Always

Corresponding author
Shuangliang Tai can be contacted at: taishlhit@hit.edu.cn

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