Student's attitudes towards computers in sixteen to nineteen education

Over the last two decades there have been numerous studies in a variety of countries examining students' attitudes towards computers, ranging from pre-school to postgraduate levels of education. Despite a plethora of international attitudinal research there has, however, been a conspicuous avoidance of the 16–19 educational setting (i.e. Grades 12–14). From this background the present study examined the attitudes towards computers of a sample of 983 students from nine school sixth-form and college based institutions in South Wales. Although students' attitudes towards IT were found to be influenced by a range of individually and educationally based factors, multivariate analysis showed that attitudes were primarily influenced by the subject area and qualification pathway students were following as well as their access to a home computer. Contrary to previous research, gender was found to only exert a lesser influence on students' attitudes. Furthermore, factors such as the educational institution attended and students' year group were not found to affect attitudes towards computers. Having contextualised these findings within the international work carried out on computer attitudes and use, areas of contention for future research are then discussed.p>