TY - JOUR

T1 - Attitudes towards computers and information technology at three universities in Germany, Belgium, and the U.S.

AU - Leutner, Detlev

AU - Weinsier, Philip D.

PY - 1994/12/1

Y1 - 1994/12/1

N2 - Students' interest in computers and information technology is both a prerequisite and a goal of successful qualification programs. The present study was conducted to search for intercultural differences or cross-cultural consistency of attitudes in this field, based on the Computer and Information Technology Attitude Inventory (CITAI; Weinsier & Leutner, 1988). This instrument was developed to overcome theoretical and methodological problems of usual Likert-type questionnaires by (a) hiding the object of measurement from the responding student and (b) by using a factorial or facet design for constructing 72 items (titles of university short courses with and without reference to computers or information technology). Data on 529 students were collected at three universities in Germany, Belgium, and the U.S. Multidimensional scalings indicated high similarity of the interitem correlation structures across the three samples based on both point-to-point correspondences and facet theoretic regional analysis of the spaces. This cross-cultural consistency underlines the construct validity of the questionnaire design. However, some intercultural differences were found - for instance, that European students have a strong preference/or noncomputer as opposed to computer courses, whereas U.S. students do not have any preference. The results are discussed with regard to the initial hypothesis that an object loses its feature of being a controversial theme with strong effects on attitudes if that object becomes more and more a component of the normal environment.

AB - Students' interest in computers and information technology is both a prerequisite and a goal of successful qualification programs. The present study was conducted to search for intercultural differences or cross-cultural consistency of attitudes in this field, based on the Computer and Information Technology Attitude Inventory (CITAI; Weinsier & Leutner, 1988). This instrument was developed to overcome theoretical and methodological problems of usual Likert-type questionnaires by (a) hiding the object of measurement from the responding student and (b) by using a factorial or facet design for constructing 72 items (titles of university short courses with and without reference to computers or information technology). Data on 529 students were collected at three universities in Germany, Belgium, and the U.S. Multidimensional scalings indicated high similarity of the interitem correlation structures across the three samples based on both point-to-point correspondences and facet theoretic regional analysis of the spaces. This cross-cultural consistency underlines the construct validity of the questionnaire design. However, some intercultural differences were found - for instance, that European students have a strong preference/or noncomputer as opposed to computer courses, whereas U.S. students do not have any preference. The results are discussed with regard to the initial hypothesis that an object loses its feature of being a controversial theme with strong effects on attitudes if that object becomes more and more a component of the normal environment.

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0028747742&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/0747-5632(94)90048-5

DO - 10.1016/0747-5632(94)90048-5

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:0028747742

VL - 10

SP - 569

EP - 591

JO - Computers in Human Behavior

JF - Computers in Human Behavior

SN - 0747-5632

IS - 4

ER -