Higher education institutions embrace internet technology and online services in all aspects of campus life. The internet plays a significant role in the academic environment and is utilized in various institutional business practices. For college students, the internet is an important tool for conducting academic work but it is also utilized for recreational activities such as file sharing and illegal downloading of copyrighted material. Downloading and file sharing of digitized material has become a major concern for institutional policy makers. Responding to outside pressures, institutions have deployed a variety of policies and practices to curb illegal downloading and file sharing activity. Research, however, has not determined how effective awareness of these policies is in influencing student attitudes, behavioral intentions, and behavior.
This study fills this gap by exploring the effects of student awareness of institutional policy on behavioral intentions and behaviors toward online file sharing and digital piracy of copyrighted material. Through an online survey, students were asked about their current attitudes and behaviors regarding digital piracy and file sharing, their awareness of institutional policies, and what effects awareness of policies had on their intentions and behaviors toward file sharing and digital piracy. Frequency summaries, simple crosstabs, and multiple regression analysis were utilized to determine the relationships between the variables.
Study results suggest that student awareness of policies generally influenced behavior but student attitudes and their behavioral intentions were better predictors of student file sharing and downloading behavior. Awareness effected student behavior by influencing student attitude and student behavioral intention. Results also suggest that demographics characteristics (gender, ethnicity, academic classification, time spent living on campus) had varying effects on the outcomes. The interaction of gender and awareness was the only demographic characteristic that was significant and had any effect on student downloading and file sharing behavior. Females were more aware of policy than males and they were less likely to engage in downloading and file sharing behavior. Males despite having some awareness of policy continued to participate in downloading and file sharing behavior.
