The Effect of Computer Literacy Course on Students' Attitudes toward Computer Applications

J. EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS, Vol. 37(1) 83-95, 2008-2009

THE EFFECT OF COMPUTER LITERACY COURSE ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD COMPUTER APPLICATIONS ZIPPY ERLICH RIVKA GADOT DAPHNA SHAHAK The Open University of Israel ABSTRACT

Studies indicate that the use of technologies as teaching aids and tools for self-study is influenced by students’ attitudes toward computers and their applications. The purpose of this study is to determine whether taking a Computer Literacy and Applications (CLA) course has an impact on students’ attitudes toward computer applications, across various undergraduate disciplines. A Computer Application Attitude (CAA) questionnaire was administered at the beginning and at the end of the semester to social science students enrolled in a CLA course. The study population was divided into two groups according to the students’ field of study: quantitative-oriented and qualitative-oriented. A significant difference was found in attitudes before and after the CLA course only in the quantitative group. Based upon the results of this study, it is recommended to offer different computer literacy courses to the different groups to improve students’ attitudes toward the use of these applications.

1. INTRODUCTION Computer literacy has been a subject of educational research ever since computers were introduced as teaching aids and tools for self-study. More and more information technology (IT) resources have become available both for support of campus-based education and for Web-based learning. The importance of students being able to access technology, to seek and exchange information using databases 83 Ó 2008, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. doi: 10.2190/ET.37.1.g http://baywood.com

84 / ERLICH, GADOT AND SHAHAK

and networks and to evaluate it, has been highlighted by many researchers (e.g., Johnston & Webber, 2003; Virkus, Bockhorst, Gomez-Hernandez, Skov, & Webber, 2005). Technology impacts students’ daily lives and certainly plays an important part in developing students’ positive and negative attitudes toward it (Volk, Yip, & Lo, 2003). The development of new communication technologies and their applications has opened a broad spectrum of options to promote learning. Computer technologies are important tools for learning, communicating, and retrieving information. Still, many students lack experience in effective information handling and they use the broad spectrum of technologies only to a relatively small extent in their learning. The success of efforts to integrate technology in learning is largely affected by the attitudes of students toward computers and their use. Many studies have examined the attitude toward computers on different dimensions, such as level of computer literacy, computer experience, computer anxiety, technophobia, and other variables (Abdelhamid, 2002; Anderson & Hornby, 1996; Anthony, Clarke, & Anderson, 2000; Garland & Noyes, 2004; Hignite & Echternacht, 1992; Igbaria & Chakrabarti, 1990; Kinzie, Delcourt, & Powers, 1994; Lim, 2002; Milbrath & Kinzie, 2000; Mitra & Steffensmeier, 2000; Parish & Necessary, 1996; Sam, Othman, & Nordin, 2005; Schumacher & Morahan-Martin, 2001; Seyal, Rahim, & Rahman, 2002; Sigurdson, 1991; Smith, Caputi, & Rawstorne, 2000; Turnipseed & Burns, 1991). Researchers have conducted numerous investigations on additional aspects of attitudes toward computers; the influence of attitudes toward computers on behavior, learning styles, distance education, and e-learning (Ames, 2003; Armitage & Christian, 2003; Erlich, Erlich-Philip, & Gal-Ezer, 2004; Hong, Ridzuan, & Kuek, 2003; Keller & Cernerud, 2002; Link & Marz, 2006; Liu, Macmillan, & Timmons, 1998; Shaw & Marlow, 1999; Tsai & Tsai, 2003); the change in attitudes toward computers over the years (Clarke & Finnie, 1998; Smith & Oosthuizen, 2006); the relationship between attitudes toward computers and the desirability of acquiring computing skills (Zhang & Espinoza, 1998); the influence of training and courses to develop computer skills on students’ attitudes toward computers (Drrup, 2004; Gibson & Silverberg, 2000; Torkzadeh & Van Dyke, 2002). Nonetheless, little is known about students’ attitudes toward specific computer applications across various undergraduate disciplines. The purpose of this study is to compare undergraduate students’ attitudes toward common computer applications in two social science areas; disciplines with a quantitative orientation and those with a qualitative orientation, and to determine whether taking a Computer Literacy and Applications (CLA) course has an impact on students’ attitudes. The rest of this article is structured as follows: In Section 2, we provide an overview of the Computer Literacy and Applications (CLA) course; in

EFFECT OF COMPUTER LITERACY COURSE /

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Section 3 we describe the research method; in Section 4, we present the results; and Section 5 includes the discussion and recommendations. 2. THE COMPUTER LITERACY AND APPLICATIONS (CLA) COURSE 2.1 Background To participate in any online course, students need to have basic knowledge of computer applications, including the Internet. There are still many students who begin their academic studies with little or no computer literacy and application know-how and, therefore, are not sufficiently skilled to take advantage of the course Website or participate in online activities. In order to provide the computer literacy necessary for online course activities, the Open University of Israel (OUI) developed a Computer Literacy and Applications (CLA) course (Lupo & Erlich, 2001), based on a model of learning that integrates online technologies and traditional distance education teaching materials and combines them with Cookson’s (2000) three-layer model. This model of learning allows undergraduate students with no previous knowledge to take it as a distance-learning course. Teaching through the new technological tools themselves, thus providing active training in computer-based technologies, contributes greatly to the students’ expertise in the use of these technological tools in their future studies (Erlich, Gal-Ezer, & Lupo, 2002; Hong, Lai, & Holton, 2001; Lupo & Erlich, 2001; Scagnoli, 2001). 2.2 Course Overview The CLA course is a one-semester course. It begins with a short introduction to computers and the Windows operating system, followed by study of five common computer applications: e-mail, Internet, Word Processing (Word), Electronic spreadsheet (Excel), and Electronic Presentation (PowerPoint). Because most students are familiar with e-mail, the Internet, and Word, about 50% of the CLA course focuses on Excel, which is more difficult to learn and requires more explanation and practice. Most students are not familiar with PowerPoint so the course also provides basic knowledge for creating presentations. The CLA course integrates various kinds of teaching materials: a textbook, courseware, interactive Web-based technologies; and a printed study guide to help students organize their learning. A different combination of materials is used in each part of the course. The course requires that students participate in activities on the course Website, which accustoms them to the concept of online learning. During the semester, students are required to submit five assignments. The first is submitted via snail


mail and the other four are electronic assignments submitted via e-mail or through an electronic assignment delivery system. At the end of the semester, students take a written final exam and submit a final project. In the project, they search the Internet for academic data relating to their field of study, process it using Excel, and present the results in a Word document, which incorporates an Excel spreadsheet. The final project is e-mailed to the tutor. E-mail and discussion groups are the main means of communication in the course, and very few face-to-face tutorials are held. On the site’s bulletin board, students receive messages about changes in meeting schedules, clarifications on deadlines for submitting assignments, etc. The Website’s discussion group is divided into several forums according to the topics covered in the course. 3. METHOD 3.1 Participants The sample of the study consisted of 336 undergraduate Social Sciences students enrolled in the CLA course. To assess students’ attitudes toward the computer applications included in the CLA course, an attitude questionnaire was administered twice, at the beginning and at the end of the course. The sample was divided into two groups according to the students’ field of study: disciplines with a quantitative orientation and those with a qualitative orientation. The former consisted of 181 (53.9%) students majoring in Management, Economics, and Accounting. The latter consisted of 155 (46.1%) students studying Psychology, Sociology, Education, and Political Science. The sample included 32.4% males and 67.6% females; 9.8% were less than 21 years old; 65.8%, between 22 and 27; 17.6% , between 28 and 35; and 6.8%, above 35. Table 1 presents the distribution of the study sample. No significant difference was found in the distribution of age groups among the male and female students in the quantitative-oriented group (c2 = 6.631, df = 3, n.s) or the qualitative-oriented group (c2 = 5.649, df = 3, n.s). Almost a third (25.9%) of the students were in their first year of studies; the rest were students in their second year and above. Most of the students had previous Internet and Word experience: 60.7% reported that they used the Internet several times a day and 24.7%, several times a week; 44.9% reported using Word several times a week and more. Most of the students in the sample had very little or no previous experience with Excel or PowerPoint; only 11.6% reported using PowerPoint several times a week and more, and only 21.7% reported using Excel several times a week and more. 3.2 Measures To evaluate the influence of the CLA course on students’ attitudes toward the five applications (e-mail, Internet, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel), we constructed


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Table 1. Distribution of Age, by Group and Gender (in percentages) Age Group

Gender

< 21

22-27

28-35

> = 36

Quantitative-oriented

Male Female Total

6.0 13.4 9.9

78.6 61.9 69.6

13.1 18.6 16.0

2.4 6.2 4.4

Qualitative-oriented

Male Female Total

0.0 11.5 9.7

56.0 62.3 61.3

32.0 16.9 19.4

12.0 9.2 9.7

a Computer Applications Attitude (CAA) questionnaire. The questionnaire is based on items drawn from the TAC and TAT questionnaires (Christensen & Knezek, 2001) and from the TACT questionnaire (Erlich-Philip, 2003). The Computer Applications Attitude (CAA) Questionnaire

The CAA questionnaire consists of two parts. The first part includes background questions as well as questions about the frequency of use of the five computer applications. The second part of the CAA questionnaire includes five sections that measure attitudes toward the applications. This part includes 25 items on a 7-point bi-polar semantic differential scale. Examples of the contrasting bi-polar adjectives: Not interesting–Interesting; Not valuable–Valuable; Not exciting–Exciting; Unnecessary–Necessary. For each student, an average score was calculated for each of the five sections. Reliability of the CAA Questionnaire

Reliability analysis was performed on each of the five sections of the second part of the questionnaire for the data gathered at the beginning of the CLA course. The analysis included the item-total correlations and the Cronbach a. The item-total correlations for all five sections ranged from 0.55 to 0.88, thus all the items qualified to be included in the questionnaire. The Cronbach alpha (a) for all sections was high, ranging from 0.80 to 0.94. Table 2 presents the reliability of the five sections. 3.3 Procedure The CAA questionnaire was administered twice to all students enrolled in the CLA course, during the first and last lessons. Prior to filling out the questionnaire,


Table 2. Reliability of the Five Sections of the Questionnaire N = 336 Number of items

a

e-mail

5

0.87

Word

3

0.92

Internet

7

0.88

PowerPoint

5

0.94

Excel

5

0.91

Attitude toward

the students were given an explanation about the study and its purpose. They were also told that the questionnaire was anonymous and would serve only research needs. Data analyses were carried out using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) to determine frequencies, percentages, cross-tabulations, Chi-square tests, t-tests, and repeated measure ANOVAs. 4. RESULTS The findings regarding students’ attitudes before and after the CLA course are presented for each of the five computer applications. 4.1 Attitudes Before the CLA Course Table 3 presents the means and standard deviations of students’ attitudes toward the five computer applications before taking the CLA course for each group, and the t-tests for the difference between groups. Overall, the attitudes toward all the five common computer applications in the two groups are positive. However, the mean attitudes toward the PowerPoint (4.82, 5.02) and Excel (5.09, 4.89) are lower than the mean attitudes toward e-mail (5.97, 6.11), the Internet (6.06, 6.13), and Word (6.26, 6.26). No significant difference was found between the groups in their attitudes toward each of the applications. 4.2 Attitudes After the CLA Course Table 4 presents the means and standard deviations of students’ attitudes toward the five applications after taking the CLA course for each group, and the t-tests for the difference between groups.


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Table 3. Means, SDs, and t-Tests on Students’ Attitudes toward Computer Applications Before the CLA Course Quantitativeoriented N = 181

Qualitativeoriented N = 155

t (df = 334)

Application

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

p

e-mail

5.97

1.04

6.11

0.96

1.34

n.s.

Internet

6.06

1.02

6.13

0.93

0.67

n.s.

Word

6.26

1.02

6.26

1.14

0.01

n.s.

PowerPoint

4.82

1.53

5.02

1.60

1.18

n.s.

Excel

5.09

1.33

4.89

1.56

1.28

n.s.

Table 4. Means, SDs, and t-Tests on Students’ Attitudes toward Computer Applications After the CLA Course Quantitativeoriented N = 181

Qualitativeoriented N = 155

t (df = 334)

Application

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

p

e-mail

6.01

1.00

6.09

1.01

0.66

n.s.

Internet

6.20

0.82

6.09

0.95

1.15

n.s.

Word

6.04

1.26

6.23

1.13

1.43

n.s.

PowerPoint

4.87

1.46

5.03

1.39

1.02

n.s.

Excel

5.39

1.31

4.94

1.42

3.04

< 0.01

Like the attitudes before the CLA course, the attitudes toward all five applications in both groups are positive. Here again, the mean attitudes toward the PowerPoint (4.87, 5.03) and Excel (5.39, 4.94) are lower than the mean attitudes toward e-mail (6.01, 6.09), the Internet (6.20, 6.09), and Word (6.04, 6.23). In addition, like before the CLA course, no significant difference was found between groups in their attitudes toward e-mail, Internet, Word, and PowerPoint. However, a significant difference (p < 0.01) was found in favor of the quantitative-oriented group in their attitude toward Excel.


4.3 Change in Attitudes Following the CLA Course To determine whether following the CLA course there was a significant change in the students’ attitudes in the two groups, a repeated measures ANOVA was performed for each of the five applications. The results of these analyses are presented in Table 5. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA for each of the five applications show that no significant interaction was found between Time (before and after CLA course) and Group, indicating that there was no significant difference in the change of attitude before and after the CLA course between the groups. For the entire sample, no significant difference was found between before and after the CLA course for three applications: e-mail, Internet, and PowerPoint. However, the results showed a trend of improvement in the mean attitude from before to after the CLA course for all three: e-mail (6.03 to 6.05), Internet (6.09 to 6.15), and PowerPoint (4.91 to 4.95). A significant difference was found for the other two applications—Word and Excel. The mean attitude toward Word decreased from 6.26 (before CLA) to 6.13 (after CLA), while the mean attitude toward Excel increased from 4.99 (before CLA) to 5.18 (after CLA). Examining the means before and after the CLA course separately for each group, for these two applications (Tables 3 and 4), reveals some differences between groups. The paired t-tests showed that the decrease in the mean attitude toward Word in the quantitative group from before (6.26) to after (6.04) was significant (t = 2.38,

Table 5. Means, SDs, and Repeated Measures ANOVA for Time (Before and After CLA Course) and Group Before Application Mean

After

SD

Mean

SD

Source

F (1, 334)

p

e-mail

6.03

1.00

6.05

1.00 Time Time × Group

0.03 0.40

n.s. n.s.

Word

6.26

1.07

6.13


4.04 2.49

< 0.05 n.s.

Internet

6.09

0.98

6.15


0.98 3.56

n.s. n.s.

PowerPoint

4.91

1.56

4.95


1.17 0.06

n.s. n.s.

Excel

4.99

1.43

5.18


5.57 2.87

< 0.01 n.s.


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df = 180, p < 0.05) and stronger than the decrease from before (6.26) to after (6.24) in the qualitative group, which was not significant. The increase in the mean attitude toward Excel in the quantitative group from before (5.09) to after (5.39) was significant (t = 3.25, df = 180, p < 0.01) and stronger than the increase from before (4.89) to after (4.94) in the qualitative group, which was not significant. 5. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS The results of the study show that, in both groups, the students’ attitudes toward the five applications were high both before and after the CLA course. However, attitudes toward Excel and PowerPoint were relatively lower than attitudes toward e-mail, the Internet, and Word. A possible explanation for these results is that the students are familiar with and use e-mail, the Internet, and Word more than they use Excel and PowerPoint. Before the CLA course, no significant difference between groups was found in students’ attitudes toward all five applications. After the CLA course, a significant difference between groups was found only in the students’ attitudes toward Excel. The attitudes of the students in the quantitative group were significantly more positive than those in the qualitative group. This indicates that the high level of study of Excel in the CLA course contributed more to the students in the quantitative group because of its direct relation to their future studies and practice at work, while the students in the qualitative group had difficulty coping with the high level of study and possibly felt that they only needed basic knowledge of Excel. The comparison of the change of attitudes before and after the CLA course revealed no significant interactions between repeated measures (before and after) and groups. For the repeated measures effect, no significant difference was found for e-mail, Internet, and PowerPoint; however, there was a slight increase in students’ attitudes from before to after the CLA course in these three applications. This slight increase can be attributed to the study of these applications in the CLA course. With regard to Word and Excel, a significant difference was found in their repeated measures. The students’ attitude toward Word before the course was higher than after it. This can be explained, on one hand, by students’ highly positive attitude toward Word before the CLA course (regression effect) and, on the other hand, by the CLA course itself, which did not add significantly to their Word knowledge, as only a small portion of the CLA course was devoted to it. In the Excel application, the students’ attitudes after the CLA course were more positive than before it. This result is a consequence of fact that the CLA course focused mainly on the study of the Excel and increased their awareness of the power and the wide range of its uses. These changes in attitude toward Word and Excel were found for both groups; however, a significant difference was found only in the quantitative group for both applications. The significant decrease in attitude toward Word in the quantitative group can be attributed to the expectations of the students in this group to


gain more knowledge of Word from the CLA course. The significant increase in attitude toward Excel results from the fact that the students in this group use Excel much more in their studies and are more aware of its importance in the future. Thus, intensive study of Excel is much more valuable to them and a deeper acquaintance with Excel contributes to their ability to use it. Based upon the results of this study, it is recommended to develop and teach a different CLA course to students with different orientations. The syllabus for each orientation should focus on those computer applications that are more relevant and suitable to their field of study. The syllabus for the qualitative orientations should focus mainly on Word, Internet, and PowerPoint, and less on Excel. The syllabus for the quantitative orientations should focus mainly on Excel and less on the other applications. In addition, study of Excel should be extended beyond topics covered in the current CLA course and include topics related to management, economics, and accounting. This separation will help to improve the level of knowledge and skills relevant to each group, increase students’ satisfaction with the course, and improve their attitudes toward the use of these applications. The OUI has begun to develop a proposed syllabus for two separate CLA courses in keeping with this recommendation.

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The Effect of Computer Literacy Course on Students' Attitudes toward Computer Applications

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