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TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – October 2012, volume 11 Issue 4 FACTORS INFLUENCING WOMEN’S ATTITUDES TOWARDS COMPUTERS IN A COMPUTER LITERACY TRAINING PROGRAM Sung-Lu CHANG Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan Department of Digital Media Design Tatung Institute of Commerce and Technology, Taiwan songlu@ms2.ttc.edu.tw Ruey S. SHIEH (Corresponding author) Department of Information Management Kainan University, Taiwan rueys99@gmail.com Eric Zhi-Feng LIU (Corresponding author) Graduate Institute of Learning and Instruction Center of Teacher Education Research Center for Science and Technology for Learning National Central University, Taiwan totem@cc.ncu.edu.tw Pao-Ta YU Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan csipty@cs.ccu.edu.tw ABSTRACT In the “Digital Divide” research, adult women have generally been found to be the weakest group when compared with others. There is thus a need to provide this particular group with computer literacy training, and to give them opportunities to learn about using computers. In such training, women not only need to learn computer skills, but also a positive attitude. This study gathered qualitative and quantitative data from 175 women who attended computer literacy training, to analyze their attitudes towards computers and to identify differences in their attitudes. The data were collected from questionnaires, interviews and class observations. It was found that only women with lower educational levels had feelings of high anxiety prior to the training. However, other characteristics influenced their attitudes during the training, including age, education, nationality, and PC ownership. Factors influencing the differences in their attitudes were the difficulties of data input, physiological limitations, cultural differences, computer access and learning opportunities. Suggestions for future computer training programs for adult women are proposed. Keywords: attitudes towards computers, digital divide, gender issues, computer literacy training, adult learning INTRODUCTION Due to improvements in information and communications technology (ICT), computers and the Internet have become useful tools in our daily life and work. However, there are still those who do not know how to use computers or the Internet, a situation referred to as the “digital divide,” and the issue of gender has always been the topic of most concern in the discussion of this divide. The declaration of the 4 th World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 appealed to governments and non-profit organizations to take action to strengthen women’s skills, knowledge and access abilities in the area of information technology. However, according to “The World's Women 2010” report, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs indicated that the gender digital divide still exists, not only in the less developed countries with lower Internet access rates, but also in the developed countries with high access rates. Of the 55 reported countries, the gender digital divide gap in 28 countries exceeded 5%, and the rates of males using the Internet, excluding Cuba, were higher than those of females. When further comparing the rates among different age categories, the digital divide for older females was the most serious. In a study of 27 EU countries (Eurostat, 2010), 55-74-year-old women’s utility rate of the Internet fell 10% below that of men. The same situation can be found in Taiwan. Since the beginning of the widespread use of and education in information technology in Taiwan, the computer usage rate of 12-40-year-old Taiwanese has risen to above 90%, and gender differences are not obvious. However, as the middle-aged and elderly have not had the same chances to learn about information technology, the rate drops as age rises, and women are obviously falling behind men in these Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 177
TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – October 2012, volume 11 Issue 4 age groups (Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, RDEC, 2010). For instance, females aged 51- 60 lag behind males by 2.3% (69% vs. 71.3%), and the difference widens to 9.2% among those aged 61 and older (11.5% vs. 18.4%). To encourage adult women to learn computer skills and to reduce the gender digital divide, in 1995 Microsoft, in association with a number of non-profit organizations, initiated the “Women Up Project” to provide women who lacked computer skills with 24 hours of free computer literacy training in basic information technology skills. This project received the recognition of the government in 2007 when the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), Executive Yuan, invested in expanding the program into the Bridging Digital Divide for Women Project. Since then it has helped almost 20,000 women in Taiwan to learn basic computer skills each year. According to Simonson, Maurer, Montag-Toradi, and Whitaker (1987), expanding or sustaining a positive, anxiety free attitude or value structure about computers is considered pivotal for computer literacy. Because of the rapid and continuous development of computers, skills and knowledge are important for the computer literate person, but a positive attitude toward computing is also considered to be necessary (Simonson et al., 1987). In addition, there is a traditional stereotype that women do not have good computer skills, and that their attitudes toward computing tend to be negative. The findings of many researchers have also echoed this (e.g., Alzaidiyeen, Abdullah, & Al-Shabatat, 2011; Dinçyürek, Arsan, & Cağlar, 2011; Işman & Celikli, 2009; Massoud, 1991; Liu, Lin, Chen, & Peng, 2012; Ocak & Akdemir, 2008; Topkaya, 2010). Therefore, any future projects that are offered should not just focus on computer skills learning, but should also pay attention to improvements in attitudes toward computing. The purpose of this study is to explore the differences in the attitudes of the women beginning to learn computer skills and the factors contributing to these differences, and to provide reference suggestions for the future design of these kinds of training programs. LITERATURE REVIEW In the Digital Divide research, older adult users have been found to lag behind others in ICT and Internet use. In addition, some researchers have found that older adults experience greater anxiety than younger adults (Laguna & Babcock, 1997), or have less confidence (Dyck & Smither, 1994). However, some studies have found that the differences between the two groups are not conspicuous (Broady, Chan, & Caputi, 2010; Massoud, 1991). Broady et al. (2010) found that giving older adults the proper encouragement, clear explanations of the personal benefits and an appropriate time schedule can help them to learn to use computers in an effective way. It is generally considered that the higher education people have, the better their computer skills will be, the more positive attitudes they will have, and the less anxiety they will experience (Chou & Shieh, 2011). However, some researchers have found that computer learning attitudes are not related to learners’ education levels (e.g., Laguna & Babcock, 1997; Hashim & Mustapha, 2004). Working women have more chances to use computers than housewives. Hilbert (2011) states that working women tend to use computers more actively, no matter whether in the working environment, at home, or in public places. Nakatani and Miyamoto’s (2006) findings concur, as they found that housewives experience anxiety about learning to use computers because they rarely have the opportunity to use one. To break this negative cycle, helping housewives to gain more confidence and enjoyment in a positive learning environment could be expected to lead them to an active learning attitude and a positive cycle. The ratio of foreign spouses in Taiwan (i.e., the ratio of migrant partners to total married couples) has been increasing since 1990, peaking at 31.9% in 2003. In 2009, the number of foreign spouses had reached 429,000, 93.3% of whom were females (Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan, R.O.C., 2011). According to the RDEC (2010) research, the rate of Internet connection in foreign spouse households was 11.1% lower than in those of non-foreign spouses. In addition, their awareness of availability of information was 12% lower than that of non-foreign spouses. According to Massoud (1991), people of different cultural backgrounds have different computer learning attitudes, so race/ethnicity is likely to be one of the factors influencing attitudes towards computer learning. For example, Marcoulides (1991) found that there are no differences between American and Chinese students in terms of the factors affecting their computer anxiety. On the other hand, Brosnan and Lee’s study (1998) found that United Kingdom nationals had less computer anxiety and more positive computer learning attitudes than Hong Kong nationals because of cultural gender differences, even though the educational backgrounds and technological advances of the two groups of subjects were comparable. Computer ownership has always been one of the indexes in the research of the Digital Divide, and also a factor considered in computer learning attitude research. If users own a computer, they are more likely to use it regularly, which will change their computer attitudes (Ogunkola, 2008). In addition, computer owners tend to Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 178
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