Prior negative experiences: their impact on computer training outcomes
Computers & Education
Gender differences in computer science students
SIGCSE '03 Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
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The current post-secondary graduation rates in computing disciplines suggest American universities are only training enough students to fill one third of the projected 1.4 million technology and computing jobs available National Center for Women and Information Technology, 2011. Pursuit of information technology IT majors depends, to a great extent, on students' attitudes toward these majors. This study developed an Attitude toward IT Scale with a gender subtext to measure college students' attitudes toward IT. The norm group consisted of mostly freshmen enrolled in summer and fall 2011 N = 363, at a large four-year public university in Illinois. Reliability and validity of the 30-item Scale were examined by using Cronbach's alpha and a principal components factor analysis with orthogonal rotation using varimax with Kaiser normalization; the rotation converged in seven iterations. Results of data analyses showed that overall reliability is high 0.85, and factor analyses revealed five orthogonal factors with high coefficient alphas. This Scale may be used by educators at the senior high school and college levels to evaluate the effectiveness of different teaching/learning strategies in promoting positive student attitudes toward IT, and in improving learning among students. The Scale is unique in that it includes attitudes toward gender equality of opportunity in IT.