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Toward Understanding Student Differences in a Computer Skills Course

Effective teaching in an introductory computer skills course requires detailed knowledge about the students in the class. Differing characteristics in students may provide opportunities for or create impediments to significant learning. This study examines various characteristics of students enrolled in a computer skills course. Demographic characteristics include demographic variables gender, college major, high school computer courses, and other prior computer experiences. Other characteristics of the students examined are computer self-efficacy, computer attitude, computer anxiety, and cognitive style. Each of these is defined in terms of four established measures and is compared with the demographic characteristics and with each other. This study shows that gender and high school programming classes seem not to differentiate student scores on the four measures. On the other hand, high school spreadsheet courses, high school database courses, ownership of a computer, and having worked with a computer in a job do differentiate student scores in computer self-efficacy, computer anxiety, and computer attitude. Student cognitive style appears to be independent of most characteristics.