School children's attitudes towards computers as a fucntion of gender, course subjects and availability of home computers

The attitudes of 328 British Secondary School children towards computers were examined in a cross-sectional survey. Measures of both general attitudes towards computers and affective reactions towards working with computers were examined in relation to the sex of the subject, courses studied (computer related/noncomputer related) and availability of a home computer. A differential pattern of results was observed. With respect to general attitudes towards computers, main effects were found for all three independent variables indicating that more favourable attitudes increased as a function of being male, doing computer courses and having a home computer. In contrast to this, affective reactions to working with computers was primarily related to doing computer courses, such that those doing computer courses reported more positive and less negative reactions. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.