An Examination of Computer Attitudes, Anxieties, and Aversions Among Diverse College Populations: Issues Central to Understanding Information Sciences in the New Millennium

Studying the impact of computer attitudes on the production of knowledge is central to the understanding of information sciences in the new millennium. The major results from a survey of diverse college populations suggest that Liberal Arts College (LAC) students, in this demographic, have somewhat more ambivalence toward computers than students in a Community College (CC) or a nontraditional Business College (BC) environment. The respondents generally agreed that computers were an important part of daily life and not particularly frustrating. In addition, it appears that today’s students like computers, know at least something about them, feel competent when using one, and are not tired of hearing about computers as a matter of daily discourse. The participants generally agreed, although not strongly so, that they would like to learn more about computers. The surveyed students generally expressed an interest in on-line courses, although students from the LAC were more neutral about on-line courses. On-line courses were generally considered somewhat inferior to traditional classes. Most of the respondents feel that they have a reasonable amount of computer-related experiences and, as a result, have considerable competence and success when using one, and believed that they could successfully master new software. The majority of the students expressed at least some degree of enjoyment from computer and non-computer games. Last, students at the LAC and BC appeared to possess greater knowledge about computer operation, a fact that may in part be due to the age of the respondents.