COMPUTERS & EDUCATION

COMPUTERS & EDUCATION
I choose the journal “COMPUTERS & EDUCATION”, because its audiences are just the researchers interested in the educational aspects of computers (computing), educational technologists. It mainly talks about what we need to learn.

The information of this paper:
Antonio P. M., Aurora G. M., & Ana R., Factors affecting e-collaboration technology use among management students, Computers & Education. 51(2), Pages 609-623

What is the problem for the study?
· This paper describes an exploratory study of 225 management students in a medium-sized university in southern Spain.
· The influences of gender and previous experience as determinants of technology use were analyzed.
· A modified Technology Acceptance Model, using SEM, was applied to explain the influence of perceived computer self-efficacy on the intention to use Internet-based e-collaboration technologies in the learning–teaching process.

What procedures did the experimenter use for the study?
· Description of participants: The participants in the study were students of an advanced management course – a subject held in the third year of the Administration and Management degree (four years) at the Faculty of Economics and Business Studies in a mid-sized university in southern Spain.
· Description of measures or instruments: The purpose of the sample was to study people in a context where a technology related to their learning/ teaching process is being introduced. As a consequence, management students were chosen as the sample and a questionnaire administered in class was used as instrument to collect the data.
· Data collection: For the data collection the questionnaire was given to the students in the normal classroom, without any previous notice. Two hundred and twenty five valid questionnaires were collected from the students attending a normal class on a normal teaching day. As 597 students were registered on the course, the response rate was 37.69%. Based on this sample size and with a reliability of 95.5%, the maximum sample error is 5.26%. Additionally, an unstructured interview-based study was conducted with 10 students.
· Analyzing data: These qualitative data were important to find out why the students did not declare an important use of the web-based course, and will be used in the analysis

What were the major conclusions for the study?
· The results suggest that the students have a poor perception about the availability and value of the IT infrastructure at their university.
· Surprisingly, they express a general negativity towards the incorporation of technology in the curriculum, and there is a divergence in perceptions of the new system’s importance between administrators/professors and students.
· Students think that the computer room opening times, available positions and the overall availability of IT on the university’s premises are insufficient for them.
· With respect to the use of e-collaboration technologies, the Spanish students surveyed generally make very little use of e-mail, and do not take particular advantage of the university’s IT access points even to access the Internet.
· The results also show that their Internet experience tends to involve relatively simple activities such as search, news updates or music/film downloads. Furthermore, respondents’ use of e-learning tools is very limited, with only 3% of students indicating they were enrolled on an Internet e-learning course during the previous year.
· The current study finds there are no significant differences between the genders with respect to the place of access to the Internet.
· Subjective feelings and beliefs about computers are found to have a strong impact on computer competence or computer self-efficacy.
· Findings about the importance to students of the perceived incentives to using the system, significant similar incentives (included in the perceived usefulness) are found.

How would you classify the study, according to the six types of research studies we looked at in this lesson?
· Descriptive research

Helen