Attitudes of entry-level University students towards computers: a comparitive study

In this paper, we present the findings of a study of attitude changes of entry-level University students towards computers conducted at two South African Universities. Analysis comprised t tests to discover differences between the perceptions/attitudes of male and female respondents, English/Afrikaans speakers and those speaking the other indigenous languages, respondents who received some form of computer education and those that did not, between distance education and residential students as well as between those that attended Computer Studies at school with no other form of computer education and those that did not. We also compared our results to those of a similar study conducted at the University of Natal, South Africa in 1997. The results showed that there is a greater appreciation of the benefit of computers, less fear of computer power, a more realistic view of computers and also a lesser impression of computer power. The conclusion is reached that less time should be spent in the syllabi on convincing students as to the benefits of computing machinery, as well as allaying fears about computing power.