Multivariate effects of gender, ownership, and the frequency of use on computer anxiety among high school students
Introduction
With the more extensive use in all levels of education (Durndell and Haag, 2002, Imhof et al., 2007), issues related to computers are more focus of interest among researchers. It is predicted that the higher number of people use computers in their daily lives, the more will face difficulties with them (Beckers & Schmidt, 2001). In this context, the construct of computer anxiety has been studied since the beginnings of the 80’s, mostly focusing on the non-cognitive factors such as attitudes, previous experiences with computers, trait anxiety, or personality-related factors.
Even though the construct of computer anxiety has been studied for an extended period of time, there is still no consensus in the literature regarding its definition (Beckers, Wicherts, & Schmidt, 2007). However, according to a commonly used definition, computer anxiety is the fear and apprehension felt by an individual when considering the utilization of computer technology or when actually using computers (Maurer, 1983). A review of the literature showed that most definitions of computer anxiety include a fear component (Chua, Chen, & Wong, 1999). Computerphobia (Rosen, Sears, & Weil, 1987), computer apprehension (Anderson, 1996), computer resistance (Bohlin & Hunt, 1995), or technophobia (Brosnan, 1999) are some of the other terms used interchangeably with computer anxiety.
Regardless of the term, there is evidence that a large number of students hold negative attitudes towards and experience high levels of computer anxiety (e.g., North & Noyes, 2002). Bozionelos (2001) found that as high as 40–50% of students experience computer anxiety. More specifically, there is evidence that high school students may experience higher levels of computer anxiety than college students (Loyd & Gressard, 1984).
Recently, computer anxiety has been conceptualized as a multi-dimensional construct, including psychological, operational, and sociological components (e.g., Beckers and Schmidt, 2001, Beckers et al., 2007). Owning a personal computer (PC) at home (ownership) and the frequency of computer use were found to be two of the operational components of computer anxiety (e.g., Brosnan, 1999, Keser, 2001, Rosen and Weil, 1995, Üstündağ, 2001). Arıkan (2002) found that those individuals who owned a PC at home showed less anxiety related to computers. Similarly, Chua et al. (1999) and Chou (2003) found that computer usage was negatively related to computer anxiety. In a relatively earlier study, Selwyn (1997) found that, out of 530 students, 68.5% had a PC at home; but there was no relationship between ownership and frequency of computer use. With a group of Turkish college students, Namlu and Ceyhan (2002) found that 19.8% of the students had a PC at home and those who had a PC showed significantly lower levels of computer anxiety. In addition, they found that as the frequency of computer use increased, computer anxiety levels decreased. This meant that students who used computers more often showed lower levels of computer anxiety compared to those who used computers less frequently.
Gender may be the single most widely investigated sociological variable in computer anxiety research (Mcilroy, Bunting, Tierney, & Gordon, 2001). Generally speaking, men have more positive attitudes toward computers than women (Bovee et al., 2007, Dupin-Bryant, 2002). In addition, women show higher levels of computer anxiety than men (e.g., Abdelhamid, 2002, Durndell and Haag, 2002, Mcilroy et al., 2001, Todman, 2000). However, other studies failed to find significant differences between men and women on computer anxiety levels (e.g., Colley et al., 1994, Rosen and Weil, 1995, Scott and Rockwell, 1997, Tekinarslan, 2008). On the contrary, a few earlier studies found that men showed higher levels of computer anxiety than women (e.g., Brosnan and Lee, 1998, Lever et al., 1989, Siann et al., 1990). Rosen and Maguire (1990) concluded that although some studies have found gender differences, such differences were minimal. Emphasizing the interaction between gender and computer usage, Scott and Rockwell (1997) argue that gender differences on computer anxiety are a function of different levels of computer experience (i.e., the frequency of computer use).
Current literature is inconsistent regarding the factors of computer anxiety. In addition, fewer studies have investigated computer anxiety levels among high school students. Chua et al. (1999) reported 15 studies that investigated college students’ computer anxiety levels, whereas, only five studies focused on high school students. A recent search of the literature between 2000 and 2008 on PsycINFO with “computer anxiety” as a descriptor revealed 47 studies, 35 peer-reviewed articles and 12 dissertations. Of the studies, 44 focused on college students or adult populations whereas, only two studies focused on high school students. Thus, scarcity of the studies on high school populations continues. More limited is multivariate investigation of the construct, even though there seems to be a consensus on the multidimensionality of computer anxiety. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the multivariate effects of gender, ownership, and the frequency of computer use on computer anxiety levels, after controlling for the possible effects of trait anxiety among Turkish high school students.
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Participants
Seven hundred fifteen Turkish high school students participated in the study. Students’ ages ranged from 14 to 19 years with a mean of 16.18 years (SD = .95). Of the group, 389 (54.4%) were boys and 326 (45.6%) were girls. There were 120 (16.8%) first-graders, 242 (33.8%) sophomores, 293 (41.0%) juniors, and 60 (8.4%) seniors in the group. More than half of the students did not have a PC at home (n = 447, 62.5%). Two hundred thirty seven students (33.2%) reported using computers every day. Half of
Results
Preliminary results showed that more boys than girls had a PC at home (n = 158 vs. n = 110); however, this difference was not statistically significant . There were significant associations between ownership and the frequency of computer use and the frequency of computer use and gender . Boys who owned a PC at home used computers most frequently. Means, standard deviations, and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients for the CAS and
Discussion
Studies that address the problems associated with and correlates of computer anxiety are abundant; however, a review of the literature on the topic shows inconsistent results with regard to gender effects. Moreover, fewer studies have focused on high school students, even though they may experience high levels of computer anxiety (Loyd & Gressard, 1984). Lastly, the multivariate nature of the construct of computer anxiety has not been adequately integrated into current literature. Therefore,
Acknowledgements
The authors express their gratitude to two anonymous reviewers, whose comments and suggestions led to a more comprehensive paper.
This study is supported by the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey.
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