The Attitudes of teacher candidates towards computers, their computer anxiety levels and their evaluation of computer course

ABSTRACT This study is aimed to put forth (1) the attitudes of primary school teacher candidates towards computers; (2) to find out the differences in their computer anxiety levels in relation to independent variables; (3) to see the effects of taking computer course on their anxiety levels and their attitudes towards computers; and (4) to find out the relationship of their academic achievement with their computer anxiety levels, their attitudes towards computers and their evaluation of the computer course. The research has been conducted with the primary school teacher candidates taking computer course of the academic year of 2000-2001 in the department of elementary school teaching in Buca Faculty of Education of Dokuz Eylül University. The data was collected by an individual characteristics questionnaire, Computer Attitude Scale developed by Aşkar and Orçun (1987), computer anxiety scale developed by Preece (1979) and adapted to Turkish by the researcher and an open ended interview questionnaire for the evaluation of computer course. Validity and reliability studies of Computer Anxiety Scale were done in the department of English Teacher Education of Dokuz Eylül University and the Department of Computer and Instructional Technologies Education of Ege University. The sample population consisted of 339 participants from pre-test and 287 participants from the post-test who have returned the scales. For the analysis of data, frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations was calculated, t-test, F test, Scheffe test and correlation coefficients were used to answer the questions presented as five sub-problems and the results are evaluated according to the significance level of p= 0,05. VIIThe results were as follows; 1. No significant differences were found between the attitudes of the teacher candidates towards computers and gender, income level, foreign language knowledge, possessing a computer, having taken the computer course, goal and frequency of computer usage; whereas general academic achievement, having taken private computer course and having an experience in computer usage showed significant difference in their attitudes towards computers. 2. No significant differences were found between the computer anxiety levels of teacher candidates and their income level, foreign language knowledge level, and having taken private computer course; whereas, gender, general academic achievement, possessing a computer, having taken private computer course, having experience in computer usage, and goal and frequency of computer usage showed significant difference in their computer anxiety levels. 3. The difference between the anxiety levels of the teacher candidates before and after taking the computer course was significant whereas, the attitudes of teacher candidates towards computers showed no significant difference. 4. The academic achievement levels of the teacher candidates in computer course showed a significant difference in their computer anxiety levels and in their attitudes towards computers. 5. The results of the open-ended questions were consistent with the other findings of the study. Findings indicated that the computer course acted as giving a positive support in the reduction of anxiety levels. VIII