IT Practices, Knowledge and Attitudes of New Enrolments at UNITEC (2001)
Carol Sherry
UNITEC
Private Bag 92025
Auckland
New Zealand
Phone: 09 815 4321 Ext 8827
Fax: 09 815 2904
Email: csherry@unitec.ac.nz
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IT Practices, Knowledge and Attitudes of New Enrolments at UNITEC (2001)
Abstract
This study analysed the information literacy and competency of new enrolments in the Bachelor of
Business Studies and the New Zealand Diploma in Business programmes at UNITEC. A questionnaire
analysed general demographic information including gender, course of study, ethnicity and age along
with student self-perception of computer knowledge and self-confidence in using computers. Access to
Information Technology (IT) and current experience/use of computers by the students was also
researched.
Main findings show that the majority of students have access to a computer either at home or work and
94% of these students have access to the Internet. There was no difference between males and females
in their self-perception of computer knowledge or their confidence in using computers. No significant
difference was found in self-perception of computer knowledge or their confidence in using computers
between New Zealand students and non New Zealand students. While the majority of students claim to
be experienced in word processing, a large proportion of the students have no experience with
spreadsheets, databases and presentation graphics applications.
Introduction
The status of students’ computer literacy is of interest to many educators, but is of special importance
to instructors who teach introductory computer courses. Due to the varying levels of computer literacy
among first year tertiary students, instructors who teach courses with a computer component have, in
the past been faced with the difficult task of teaching students with a wide variety of ability levels and
experience.
With the advent of Microsoft’s Windows software the 1990’s saw an unprecedented growth in the use
of Personal Computers, both in the workplace and the home. This literature review reflects on research
in the field of student’s knowledge, practices and attitudes to Information Technology (IT) from 1993
to 2001.
Early studies revealed that students reported themselves as having low levels of Information
Technology (IT) skills and experience, while employers’ requirements for IT skills in the workforce
was growing rapidly. An early study by Ron Oliver (1993) of 454 students in their final year of
schooling, 119 teachers and 48 employers found that a large number of school leavers judged
themselves to have low levels of IT skills and experience. Nearly 60% of students in Oliver’s sample
claimed to have had no usage of, or even access to computers in the school setting. He also found that
in relation to the need for IT skills, the students perceptions to be low expectations and substantially
different to their teachers and prospective employers. In fact the student’s perception of the need for IT
skills in employment and their influence on aiding job prospects were significantly less than the
perceptions of the employers.
In the eighties a number of studies indicated that students’ attitudes improve and anxieties decrease
with greater computer experience (Lee, 1986, Loyd & Gressarde, 1984). However, a study by Larsen
and Smith (1994) of students attending the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire found that although the
majority of students did have some computer experience when they entered university, greater
computer literacy did not positively improve student’s attitudes toward using computers as nearly 61%
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of high-experience users reported strongly avoiding computers and in fact confidence levels appeared
to slide as experience rates climbed. Indicating that students in 1994, even though they had some IT
experience and knowledge were not confident in the use of Information Technology. Most of the
students in this study cited word processing as their chief experience. Roughly 66% of the students had
no desk-top publishing experience and very little spreadsheet experience. Larsen and Smith (1994)
also found that women were more likely to avoid using computers, but that gender appears to play less
of a role in determining students’ enjoyment of using computers. Larsen and Smith suggested that more
needed to be done to lessen students’ fears about computer use and help students’ see the connection
between computer use and success in the workplace. They suggested that computer courses could
become a required part of the curriculum. This in fact has happened here at UNITEC as an IT paper
for both the NZDipBUS and the BBus is mandatory.
Four years later in 1998 while researching the relationships among computer self-efficacy, attitudes
towards computers and desirability of learning computer skills, Zhang and Espinoza (1998) confirmed
previous research, that comfort or anxiety about computers perceived by students predicted their
confidence levels about computers. The researchers also found that attitude about the usefulness of
computers was a predictor of the desirability of learning computing skills
It can be seen from the studies discussed so far that there was a great deal of anxiety and reluctance
from students to embrace Information Technology throughout the nineties. However it appears that the
choice for students to embrace technology or not was rapidly diminishing, as a study conducted by
Davis (1997), showed that computer literacy requirements for all job types increased rapidly in the
early nineties and employers were requiring advanced email, advanced spreadsheet and internet skills
from graduates. These requirements have not changed since 1997, and in fact employers are requiring
an even broader range of IT abilities from graduates, such as databases, presentation graphics and with
the boom in e-commerce some knowledge of web page design. It is therefore becoming even more
important to determine to what extent students are entering tertiary education with these skills in place.
The question must be asked, are tertiary institutions just repeating theses skill sets or are they being
enhanced?
In an attempt to answer the above question Stein and Craig (1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000) in their
longitudinal study, analysed the information literacy and competency of transition students at the
Victoria University of Technology. The main aims of these studies have been to discover whether
transition student IT practices are changing with time and whether their IT skills are changing with
time. What they have found is that as expected over the years there has been an increasing level of
computer competency. They also found that by their 1998 study, that there had been a significant
increase in female self-perception of computer competency and thus an increase in confidence levels,
however there was still a significant gender difference in student self-perception of computer
competency.
It appears that by 1999, there had been a turnaround from the early nineties. Stein and Craig (1999)
found that access to a home computer had peaked, home internet usage was escalating, the gender gap
in IT practices and skills was closing and there was a dramatic increase in the use of the Internet, e-mail
and CHAT. Indications that students were seeing technology for what it is – a tool to be employed for
work or play and not some frightening unknown entity that has to be conquered.
This turnaround in the use of IT prompted Stein & Craig, at the beginning of the new millennium, Stein
& Craig (2000) to question whether or not the IT skills taught and used in university subjects were
becoming obsolete because young students had been brought up with computers. In their study “The
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Dot.Com Generation” (students born after 1981), they found that the Dot.com cohort reported
significantly higher measures of computer knowledge and confidence. Stein and Craig suggested a
possible strategy to deal with the small percentage of students who do not have this level of skill,
would be to offer supplementary courses to bring them up to the level required.
Coming closer to home, an “Access to Technology” survey was conducted by Gloria Leung at
UNITEC in 2001. This survey found that 92.8% of the respondents had access to a computer for study
related purposes and almost all of the respondents from the Faculty of Business had access to a
computer. This study also found that 74.5% of respondents had a computer at home while a further
16.8% relied on the computers at UNITEC. Leung further found that respondents who had a computer
at home were more likely to be from the age groups 15-19 years, which corresponds with Stein and
Craig’s Dot Com generation of young students being brought up with computers. The other group who
reported that they had a computer at home were the 35-39 year olds, possibly because they have been
in the workforce for some time and have the disposable income to purchase technology and may also
have young Dot.Coms’s of their own.
Computer literacy has been defined as “an understanding of computer characteristics, capabilities, and
applications, as well as an ability to implement this knowledge in the skilful, productive use of
computer applications suitable to individual roles in society” (Smith & Necessary, 1996, p 2). The
rationale behind this research project is to determine the previous computer experience of new
enrolments in the Bachelor of Business Studies (BBus), and the New Zealand Diploma in Business
(NZDipBus) at UNITEC. This research also aims to determine how computer literate these newly
enrolling students perceive themselves to be, and how confident they feel about using computers. It
would also be useful to determine access to information technology in an effort to assist the Faculty of
Business to plan future growth and provision of IT for student use at UNITEC.
Research Questions
The following questions guided the study:
1. How available is Information technology to the student?
2. What kind of computing experience if any do incoming first year students have?
3. How do students perceive their computer knowledge and how confident do they feel using
computers?
4. Is there a relationship between student gender and computer knowledge and confidence?
Methodology
A positivist paradigm has been used in this research. Positivism is an organised method for combining
deductive logic, “where the researcher moves from the general principles of a theory to particular
observations” (Davidson & Toloch, 1999, p18) with precise empirical observations of behaviour in
order to discover and confirm a set of problematic causal laws that can be used to predict general
patterns of human activity. A quantitative methodology has been chosen for this study as deductive
research builds on the notion of formal testing of existing theories. This study is building on the
existing research by Stein & Craig (1996,1997,1998,1999,2000) to test if their findings hold true for
the students at UNITEC. In order to do this, a survey was used as the quantitative instrument to gather
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information from the respondents. With some slight adjustments to reflect the UNITEC environment,
standardisation was achieved by testing the UNITEC students, with the same set of questions that was
used by Stein & Craig (with the authors permission).
An anonymous questionnaire was posted to 527 first year commencement Business Faculty students in
the first week of March. A written questionnaire was considered an appropriate data collection
instrument because it permitted a large number of people to be surveyed in a brief period of time. This
time was chosen to maximise the participation by students at the critical interface of their entry into
tertiary studies. From the possible 527 students 269 students responded giving a response rate of 51%.
The results of the survey was statistically analysed in Microsoft Excel using univariate analysis –
frequency tables, averages, percentages and cross tabulations. This research correlated the student’s
self-perception of computer knowledge and the self-perception of computer confidence between the
male and female cohorts to determine if there are any significant differences. The results of this
research was also analysed to determine if there are any significant differences in these skills and
perceptions between New Zealand students and our non New Zealand students. The Chi-square is a
non-parametric test that has been used to determine if there is a significant relationship between the
cohorts in the area of knowledge and computer confidence. This test was chosen because it can
determine whether two variables are related or independent. The limitation of this test however is the
necessity for the variables to each have only two categories, although, the chi-square test can be
extended by conducting separate tests on sub-sets of the responses. If significant differences are found
a t test would be employed to determine where the significant difference lay.
The Questionnaire – see Appendix 1
The questionnaire was comprised of three sections. The first section gathered general demographic
information about each student, this included gender, course of study, ethnicity, and age. The second
section gathered information on how students are coping with the rapid developments in IT. This
section focused on student self-perception of computer knowledge and self-confidence in using
computers.
The third section dealt with access to IT and current experience/use of computers by the students. This
section required students to select their weekly use of software packages from None, <2 hours and >2
hours in an effort to gain a more quantifiable measure of student’s use of technology. This question
avoided asking for students self perception of their knowledge of software packages which may not be
objective. For each question students responded to either pre-selected options or a five point Likert
scale, chosen to replicate Craig and Steins survey instrument.
Results
Demography
The students were split pretty evenly between BBus (49%) students and DipBus (49%) students, with
2% from other diplomas. A higher proportion of female students (68%) responded compared to (48%)
for males. Only 11% of the respondents were aged under 21, 39% were aged between 21 and 30 years
and 36% were between 31 and 40 years old, 14% were over 40 years old. Students born overseas
accounted for 64% of the cohort compared to 32% of the cohort born in New Zealand. 57% of the
students spoke a language other than English at home.
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Computer Access and Usage
The PC market has boomed in recent years and this is reflected in the number of respondents who have
access to a computer either in the workplace or at home being 92%. Of these people who have access
to a computer, 82% of them have access to Windows 98/2000, so are reasonably up to date with both
their hardware and software applications. Of those respondents who had access to a computer, 94% of
them had access to the Internet.
Only 20% of the respondents had access to a laptop computer. While only 20 students in total (7%)
reported that they had previously been involved in a laptop program at a school or tertiary institution.
A good number of students (60%) indicated that if docking stations were available at UNITEC, they
would consider purchasing a laptop to help with their studies.
Usage
As can be seen from Table 1, 93% of the students reported using a computer on a weekly basis, and
82% of students used a computer for more than 2 hours a week.
Hours Per Week
None
< 2 hours
2 to 10 hours
10+ hours
7%
11%
40%
42%
Table 1: Computer Usage % (N=269)
Student IT Skills: IT Applications
Students were asked to report their use of common IT applications with the hours of use as seen in the
Table 2 below.
Word Processing
Database
Chat Lines
Internet
Laptops
Email
None
14%
53%
75%
16%
82%
13%
<2
30%
27%
12%
22%
8%
33%
2+
56%
20%
13%
62%
10%
54%
Spreadsheets
Programming
Slide Shows
Windows
Graphics
Multimedia
None
39%
79%
68%
25%
68%
64%
<2
35%
16%
24%
20%
23%
21%
2+
26%
5%
8%
55%
9%
15%
Table 2: Use of IT Applications % (N=269)
As can be seen from these results, only 14% of students do not use a Word Processor. Similarly e-mail
(13%) and the Internet (16%) indicates that the majority of students know how to and do use these
applications. There are still a large number of students who do not use spreadsheets (39%), databases
(53%) presentation/slideshow applications (68%).
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Knowledge and Confidence
As can be seen from Table 3 below, 71% of the students felt competent in their knowledge of
computers, only 29% felt that they did not have enough knowledge.
Low Competency
Average
High Competency
29%
48%
23%
Table 3: Computer Competency % (N=259)
Table 4 below, reflects the above results for Computer Competency, 80% of the student’s felt confident
about using computers, thus making the majority of students both competent and confident in their use
of technology.
Low Confidence
Average
High Confidence
20%
42%
38%
Table 4: Computer Confidence % (N=269)
Table 5 reveals that there is no significant gender (p 0.0636) difference in the student’s self-perception
of their computer competency.
Low Competency
Average
High Competency
M
29%
48%
23%
F
29%
48%
23%
Table 5: Computer Competency by Gender % (N=269)
Table 6 reveals that there is no significant gender (p 0.6183) difference in the student’s self-perception
of their computer confidence.
Low Confidence
Average
High Confidence
M
22%
43%
35%
F
19%
41%
40%
Table 6: Computer confidence by gender % (N=269)
There is no significant (p 0.0923) difference between New Zealanders and Non New Zealanders in the
student’s self-perception of their computer competency.
Low Competency
Average
High Competency
NZ
35%
43%
22%
Non NZ
26%
50%
24%
Table 7: Computer Competency NZ vs Non-NZ % (N=269)
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There is no significant (p 0.8107) difference between New Zealanders and Non New Zealanders in the
student’s self-perception of their computer confidence.
Low Confidence
Average
High Confidence
NZ
19%
41%
40%
Non NZ
21%
42%
37%
Table 8: Computer confidence NZ vs Non-NZ % (N=269)
Discussion
Availability of Information Technology?
It appears that the majority of students (92%) have access to a computer at home or their place of work.
This finding is consistent with Stein and Craig’s (2000) findings of 94% for their Australian students.
As Stein and Craig have stated, the personal computer evolves every six months and it appears from the
findings of this research that New Zealand students are keeping pace with technology as 82% had the
latest software operating systems installed compared to 60% for their Australian counterparts. New
Zealand students also seem to be switched into the Internet as 94% of students who had access to a
computer had access to the Internet.
When it comes to laptop technology, only 20% of the students had access to a laptop. However 60% of
the students indicated that if docking stations were available at UNITEC, they would be interested in
purchasing a laptop. This finding may be of some use to the strategic planners at UNITEC.
Computing Experience
Only 7% of the respondents do not use a computer. The majority of students use a computer with 40%
of students using a computer between 2 and 10 hours a week, with a further 42% reporting that they use
a computer for more than 10 hours a week.
It would appear from the results that the majority of students are familiar with Word Processing, e-mail
and the Internet. However a large number of students are not familiar with spreadsheets (39%),
databases (53%) and presentation graphics packages (68%), which, along with word processing are the
core IT applications taught on the NZDipBus and BBUS. To what extent and how efficiently, those
students who are using word processing, spreadsheets, databases and presentation applications would
be an interesting area for further research as their use may be very limited, or repetitive.
Competency and Confidence
The majority of the students (71%) felt that they had a good knowledge of computers and 80% of
students reported that they felt confident in their use of computers.
There was no significant gender bias in the students self perception of knowledge, and while Stein and
Craig 2000, are still reporting a slight gender bias in their female cohort, their was no significant
gender difference in the New Zealand cohort.
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There was no significant difference between New Zealand Students and non New Zealand students in
their self-rating of computer knowledge and confidence in the use of computers.
Conclusion:
It seems that we have come a long way in our use and attitudes towards computers since the early
nineties. In 1993, 60% of the students in Ron Oliver’s (1993) research had no access or usage with
computers. The majority of students surveyed at UNITEC have access to a computer (92%) and 93%
of the students who do have access are using a computer on a weekly basis. Contrary to Larsen and
Smith’s (1994) findings 71% of the students at UNITEC had a good knowledge of computer
technology. An even higher number (80%) reported that they felt confident using computer
technology. This may indicate that the “fear of technology” and the anxiety that this generated in
people who had to use computers in the early and mid nineties is fading. Today many people are using
computers both in the workplace and at home, those that are not using them probably realise that with
some effort on their part, they will become competent users.
Although the majority of students felt the were knowledgeable and confident in Information
Technology, a large minority, in fact 29% of the respondents did not feel that they had a good
knowledge of IT and a further 20% did not feel confident in using IT. A very brief analysis of
knowledge and confidence levels and the age of the respondents revealed that the majority of them
were in the over 30-age bracket. The author of this research is intending to repeat and extend this
research in the first semester of 2003. Further research into the characteristics of the students who
reported low knowledge and low confidence will be a feature of this future research in an effort to
identify and offer these students additional help.
New Zealand students have embraced technology as enthusiastically as their Australian counterparts.
It also appears that the gender gap has closed, and females are every bit as knowledgeable and
confident in using IT as their male counterparts. Our non New Zealand students report themselves to
be every bit as knowledgeable and confident with IT as their New Zealand counterparts.
For those few students who are non users of technology (7%) a supplementary course might be useful.
Although this study has indicated that UNITEC students have some knowledge of the big 4
applications, a substantial number of students do not have any experience with spreadsheets (39%),
databases (53%) and presentation graphics (68%). This study does not investigate the depth of the
student’s knowledge of the internet, e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, databases and presentation
graphics, so cannot determine the true status of their computer literacy and further research need to be
carried out in this area before changes to the curriculum can be made.
Although only 20% of the students reported having access to a laptop, 60% of the students indicated
that if docking stations were available at UNITEC, they would be interested in purchasing a laptop. It
may be worthwhile for UNITEC to investigate the installation of network connections so that students
with laptops can connect to the UNITEC computer system, possibly in an area that students frequent
such as the library.
In conclusion it would seem that the majority of the students in this study have had some previous
experience with Information Technology, and the majority of the students have access to a computer
outside of UNITEC. Further research needs to be undertaken to establish which students do not feel
competent and confident about using IT in order to assist them with extra tuition to bring them to
similar levels as reported by the majority of students in this study. As people become more
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knowledgeable about IT, it is also important to make an effort to find out the depth of knowledge
students have in this area on entering tertiary education, as many hours of use of a particular program
does not necessarily indicate the depth of knowledge about the program. It is therefore proposed by the
author, that further research into the depth of knowledge of new entry students to the business
programs at UNITEC will be carried out to ensure that the IT curriculum is being taught at the correct
level to enhance the students abilities in this field.
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