A sample survey of attitudes to computer studies

Abstract

There is a general concern at present that curricular and technological change affecting the education and career aspirations of school pupils is not being fully exploited by girls. Whilst there are many reasons which can be offered to explain this trend most arise from subjective analysis or are extrapolated from surveys conducted into the factors affecting the uptake of science subjects. Much research which has considered attitudes to and the uptake of computer studies/information technology in schools has tended to be based on relatively small or isolated pupil populations but in this present study the attitudes of 1500 sixth-form boys and girls have been explored using standard questionnaire techniques. The pupil population was selected to cover a range of school types, pupil social class, ability, religion and sex as the dominant label. The survey questions were framed to explore attitudes to computing and computers, aspirations towards computer-related careers and attitudes to activities such as programming and games playing. Statistical tests have been applied to the results in order to identify overall trends and to assess the significance of boy-girl agreement and disagreement on various aspects.