Computer anxiety and attitudes towards the computer and the internet with Romanian high-school and university students

• Low computer self-efficacy predicted anxiety.
• Previous education in the field of informatics had negative effects on anxiety.
• Anxiety correlates with the experience in using computers.
• IT&C grades at Science programs are negatively associated with the level of anxiety.
• There are no significant gender differences for internet and computer anxiety.

The access of the general public and of the Romanian students to the use of the computer and the internet has been possible only since the middle of the 90's, research on the topic having no object up to that date. The variety of results obtained by studies conducted on different samples or at different time spans support the usefulness of the research in other cultural contexts than the ones in the Western countries. The current study examines the relationships between computer and internet anxiety, computer self-efficacy and other personal characteristics in a Romanian context. A full mediated model was tested. According to our findings, low computer self-efficacy predicts anxiety, the previous education in the field of computer science has direct negative effects on computer anxiety and on the negative attitudes towards the internet. The results show that there are no significant differences between the male and the female participants concerning computer anxiety, self-efficacy and the negative attitudes towards the internet. Significant differences between participants enrolled at different education levels and study programs, Science and Humanities, are obtained.