Modeling the Impacts of Information and Communication Technologies and Virtual Activities on Activity and Travel Behavior

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation R

Gupta

Jin

2022

This paper presents a study in capturing the impacts of the mandatory pandemic-induced telework practice on workers’ perceptions of the benefits, challenges, and difficulties associated with telecommuting and how those might influence their preference for telework in the future. Data was collected through an online survey conducted in South Florida in May 2020. Survey data showed that telework indices (either measured through actual behavior or stated preference) before, during, and after the pandemic were heterogeneous across socio-economic, demographic, and attitudinal segments. Before the outbreak, males, full-time students, those with PhD degrees, and high-income people showed higher percentages of involvement in jobs with a telework option. They also had higher pro-technology, pro-online education, workaholic, and pro-telework attitudes. During the pandemic, professional/managerial/technical jobs as well as jobs with lower physical-proximity measures showed the highest telework frequency. In view of future telework preferences, our analysis showed that those who were more pro-telework, pro-technology, and showed less dislike of telework dislike preferred higher telework frequency. A structural equation model was developed to assess the impacts of different predictors on telework behavior before the pandemic and preferences after the pandemic. While telework frequency before the pandemic was highly affected by the pro-telework attitude, the after-pandemic preferences were influenced by several other attitudes such as dislike telework, enjoy interaction, workaholic, as well as productivity factors. This might confirm the assumption that the mandatory practice through the pandemic has provided employees more experiences with work-from-home arrangements, which could reshape decisions and expectations around telework adoption in the future.

Section: Methodology and Model Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of COVID-19 on Future Preferences Toward Telework

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation R

Gupta

Jin

2022

“…Second, they allow the analyst to incorporate latent factors into the model (Bollen, 1989 ). The literature documents successful application of structural equation models in a variety of behavioral studies (Asgari et al, 2016 ; Asgari & Jin, 2017 , 2019 ; Cao, 2016 ; De Vos et al, 2021 ; Etminani-Ghasrodashti & Ardeshiri, 2015 ; Ingvardson & Nielsen, 2019 ; Lavieri et al, 2017 ; Mosa, 2011 ). SEM analysis is usually accompanied by a graphical manifestation, referred to as the “path diagram”.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges, perceptions, and future preferences for post-secondary online education given experiences in the COVID-19 outbreak

Gupta²,

Titiloye³

et al. 2022

Comput.Urban Sci.

To gain a better understanding of online education status during and after the pandemic outbreak, this paper analyzed the data from a recent survey conducted in the state of Florida in May 2020. In particular, we focused on college students’ perception of productivity changes, benefits, challenges, and their overall preference for the future of online education. Our initial exploratory analysis showed that in most cases, students were not fully satisfied with the quality of the online education, and the majority of them suffered a plummet in their productivities. Despite the challenges, around 61% believed that they would prefer more frequent participation in online programs in the future (compared to the normal conditions before the pandemic). A structural equation model was developed to identify and assess the factors that contribute to their productivity and future preferences. The results showed that lack of sufficient communication with other students/ instructor as well as lack of required technology infrastructure significantly reduced students’ productivity. On the other hand, productivity was positively affected by perceived benefits such as flexibility and better time management. In addition, productivity played a mediating role for a number of socio-economic, demographic, and attitudinal attributes: including gender, income, technology attitudes, and home environment conflicts. Accordingly, females, high income groups, and those with home environment conflicts experienced lower productivity, which indirectly discouraged their preference for future online education. As expected, a latent pro-online education attitude increased both the productivity and the future online-education preference. Last but not the least, Gen-Xers were more likely to adopt online-education in the post pandemic conditions compared to their peers.

“…In particular, people substituted home teleshopping time for shopping travel time, and teleshoppers took fewer shopping trips and traveled shorter distances for shopping purposes (45). Mosa (2011) showed that there are direct feedback effects between the use of information and communication technologies and in-home and out-of-home nonmandatory activities (46). Using data from the 2009 National Household Travel Survey, Zhou and Wang (2014) explored the bidirectional connection between online shopping and in-store shopping.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Telecommuting on Nonmandatory Activity Participation: Role of Endogeneity

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation R

Jin

2017

Telecommuting has been regarded as an alternative work arrangement that provides higher levels of resilience and flexibility for the workforce. To provide a robust estimation of telecommuting activity, it is important to understand the extent of telecommuting and the underlying factors that contribute to telecommuters’ decisions. One line of discussion in behavioral decisions (including telecommuting) is the endogeneity issue, also referred to as simultaneity in cause and effect. The question is whether certain activity travel behaviors are the causes of telecommuting adoption or telecommuters are manifesting such behaviors because they telecommute. For instance, are people traveling more or farther because of the higher spatial–temporal freedom brought by telecommuting, or are they choosing to or having to telecommute because they already have those activity arrangements (e.g., take care of kids) in place. Exploring such interrelationships between the choice to telecommute, activity travel plans, and other personal and household decisions is the major motivation for this research. Structural equation models were developed. Results showed that adding feedback effects to the full model improved the goodness of fit of the model, and this improvement is statistically significant ( P-value = .032). Furthermore, it could be inferred that a decision to participate in nonmandatory activities has significant positive impact on propensity to telecommute, and it is more in favor of a full-day telecommuting arrangement (versus a part-day arrangement). This study used the 2010–2011 regional household travel survey data from the New York metropolitan region.