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Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 15 (2011) 2694–2698

WCES-2011

Relation between Iranian students’ attitudes subscales with the kind of internet usage in universities Leila Dehghani Poude a *, Bibi Eshrar Zamani b, Ahmad Abedi c a

University of Isfahan, Shiraz squar, Isfahan, Iran University of Isfahan, Shiraz squar, Isfahan, Iran c University of Isfahan, Shiraz squar, Isfahan, Iran b

Abstract

The main purpose of the present study is to determine the relation between students’ attitudes subscales with internet usage of Iranian universities. The sample included 404 students from Isfahan and medical universities during the educational year of 2009-2010. The results indicated that there was positive and significant relation between students’ attitudes subscales with four domains of internet usage such as: using email, downloading files, chartrooms and searching purposes. Students who had higher level of self efficacy used internet in different domains and their perceived enjoyment were higher than students with low self efficacy. Keywords: Usefulness, Self efficacy, perceived enjoyment, Internet usage

1. Introduction Economists believe that knowledge and technology play a key role in increasing profits and economic growth in what was named knowledge – based economy or a knowledge – based society (Spiros et.al, 2004). Living in this society, needs changes in skills, abilities and habits of its citizens (Tham and Werner, 2005). It is clear that in current and future societies, Internet literacy has a significant role in changing citizens into information literate people and lifelong learners. Consequently, preparing people especially pupils and students to acquire the knowledge and the skill of Internet use must be one of the main purposes of curriculum. The role of the computer attitude is clarified in computer knowledge (Tsai, 1999), in the same way, Internet attitude must be considered as a part of Internet literacy (Tsai et al, 2001:43). Based on several studies, despite increasing number of Internet users especially university students, numerous factors impact the rate and the type of information technology use. One the most important factors is the attitude of users – negative and positive feelings – towards Internet use (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) that directly and indirectly impacts the pattern and the type of Internet use. The attitude of students towards Internet may affect their motivation and interest regarding Internet use and Internet learning (Coffin and Macintyre, 1999: 549- 569). The review of literature indicated that the attitude of students towards computer have a mutual relationship with their competency in using and learning Internet (Houle, 1996 : 25-46). What affects the attitude of user especially

* Leila Dehghani Poude, Tel.0989131102050, Fax.0983116683107. E-mail address: [email protected]

1877–0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.04.172

Leila Dehghani Poude et al. / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 15 (2011) 2694–2698

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students towards Internet consists different structures that were analyzed as subscales of attitude. One of the most important attitudinal structures that have a crucial role in students’ Internet use consists of self-efficacy beliefs, feeling of usefulness and enjoyment. The structure has a specific position in teaching and learning. Based on Ong and Lai (2006) the attitude of students towards Internet learning helps much in recognizing the rate of on-line systems use. The studies of Tella and Tella ( 2003) titled as “the relationship between self – efficacy and academic achievement”, Tella et.al ( 2007) tilted “the correlative relationship between selfefficacy and using electronic information and students performance”, Hsu and Chiu ( 2003) titled as “the role of self – efficacy in electronic services”, Yi and Hwang ( 2003) titled as “the effect of enjoyment and selfefficacy on students’ use of blackboards in web-based environments”, Lee et al ( 2003) tilted as “the role of usefulness and obtained enjoyment as key factors in students’ attitude towards Internet use and behavioral inclination to use it” are studies that confirm above statements. Most of universities in Iran apply technology and some of them offer distance (Internet learning) courses. The development and the application of the technology would not be fulfilled without the help of positive attitudes of users. Thus, awareness and recognition of students’ attitudes as primary users of universities must be one of the main concerns of educational stockholders and planners. The main purpose of this study is investigating the correlative relationship between attitudinal constructs of students and different type of Internet applications in higher education. The hypotheses are: There is a relationship between the students' perceived selfefficacy and the type of Internet usage. There is a relationship between the attitude of students which is based on perceived usefulness and the type of Internet use. There is a relationship between the attitude of students which is based on perceived enjoyment and the type of Internet use. 2. Methodology

This is a descriptive – correlative study. The purpose of the current study is investigating the relationship between the attitude of students which is based on sub- structures of selfefficacy, usefulness and enjoyment with the type of Internet use. In order to collect data after investigating past literature and interviewing with educational stockholders and officials, some of the indexes of the standard questionnaire of Dinev and Koufteros (2002) have been used. The mentioned questionnaire was used in a study in 2004 by Zaki. In the domain of perceived usefulness some items of Davis (1989) have been used and items of perceived enjoyment were made by researcher and based on past literature. In order to estimate the validity of the researcher-made questionnaire that measures the type of Internet use in five domains of e-mail, chat, download, news groups and using search engines (with sub- indexes for all five indexes ) content validity have been used and the questionnaire verified by five experts of the field of study. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by preliminary studies and by application of Alpha-cronbach formula (table 1). In order to analyze the data referential statistics has been used. By using Pearson correlative coefficient the degree of relationship between attitude structures and the type Internet use variables in SPSS environment was measured. Table 1. The distribution of reliability in each domain Domains The type of Internet use Internet selfefficacy Perceived usefulness Perceived enjoyment

2.1 Population of the study

Reliability of each domain 0.85 0.92 0.73 0.77

The type of questionnaire Researcher-made Items from Dinev and Koufteros(2002) Davis ( 1989 ) Researcher – made

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The sample consisted of 404 students (350 students of Isfahan university and 54 students of medical university).Among the sample 124 students were male and 280 students were female (266 students of bachelor and 122 students of MA). The sample selected by using random stratified sampling method compatible with population, university and gender.

3. Results Table 2. Relationship between the attitudes of students, based on perceived selfefficacy, and the type of Internet use

Source Index

Correlation Meaningfulness level

Perceived selfefficacy of web and search engines

Perceived selfefficacy of e-mail

Perceived selfefficacy of download

Perceived selfefficacy of chat

Perceived selfefficacy of news groups

0.65 0.001

0.55 0.001

0.34 0.001

0.52 0.001

0.36 0.001

Table 3. Relationship between the attitude of students, based on perceived usefulness, and the type of Internet use Source Index Correlation Meaningfulness level

Perceived usefulness of web and search engines 0.61 0.001

Perceived usefulness of e-mail 0.50 0.001

Perceived usefulness of download 0.17 0.001

Perceived usefulness of chat 0.44 0.001

Perceived usefulness of news groups 0.22 0.001

Table 4. Relationship between the attitudes of students, based on perceived enjoyment, and the type of Internet use Source Index Correlation Meaningfulness level

Perceived enjoyment of web and search engines 0.46 0.001

Perceived enjoyment of e-mail 0.38 0.001

Perceived enjoyment of download 0.14 0.001

Perceived enjoyment of chat 0.43 0.001

Perceived enjoyment of news groups 0.37 0.001

Thus, the observed r at the level of p 0.05 showed a positive and meaningful correlation between selfefficacy, perceived usefulness and enjoyment in the one hand and different types of Internet use such as web, e-mail, download, chat and news groups in the other. The analysis of the data of the study showed that more confident students (more capable students) with positive attitudes towards the benefits and usefulness of internet who have higher levels of perceived enjoyment use Internet in various domains.

2. Discussion and conclusion

Based on past studies, the positive attitudes of students towards their abilities (perceived selfefficacy) increase the actual use of Internet by them. The findings of the current study confirmed positive and meaningful correlation between perceived selfefficacy with different applications of Internet in different domains (p = 0.001). Furthermore, the findings of the current study indicated that the positive attitude of students towards benefits and


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usefulness of technology and feelings of enjoyment in using new technologies increased the rate of Internet use by students in a variety of ways. Thus, there was a positive and meaningful correlation between perceived usefulness and enjoyment with different types of Internet use in four domains of search, e-mail, download, chat and news groups (p=0.001). The findings of the current study are in line with the studies of Tella et.al (2007) and Lee et.al (2003) in three structures of selfefficacy, usefulness and enjoyment. One can concludes that the structures of attitude may have a significant role in anticipating of successful and satisfactory use of Internet in new internet educational fields. Educational planners, instructors and stockholders who want to conduct compound instructions (far-distance and facet-to face) in traditional systems must be aware of this relationship to increase the users’ Internet abilities. By increased abilities students would be aware of the benefits of technology and enjoy learning how to use it. The planners of web pages could use colors, graphics and other tools to create more amusing environments to attract students and to create enjoyment in using such web pages for students. The following tips would be suggested to university stockholders and education policy makers to create positive attitudes towards Internet use in users: x Increasing selfefficacy of students by offering courses on web designing, Internet capabilities, and the application of Internet in daily life and in occupations (some of the courses may be optional). x Holding in -service courses for instructors and offering university course in compound education format (traditional and virtual). x Increasing the speed and the wideband of Internet. x Offering free Internet connections for instructors and students. x Enriching the content of education courses. x Encouraging students and instructors to use Internet in classes. References Coffin, R. J., & Macintyre, P. D. (1999). Motivational influences on computer-related affective states. Computers in Human Behavior, 155, 569–549. Davis, F. D. (1989). Percieived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information techuology, MIS Quarterly. 13(3), 318-41. Dinev, T., & Koufteros, X. (2002). Self-efficacy and Internet usage measurement and factorial validity. Decision Sciences Institute Conference. San Diego, http://www.fau.edu/ Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley. Houle, P. A. (1996). Toward understanding student differences in a computer skill course. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 14(1), 48-25. Hsu, M. H., & Chiu, C. M. (2003). Internet self-efficacy and electronic service acceptance. Decision Support Systems, 38(3), 381–369. Lee, M. K. O., Cheung, C. M. K., & Chen, Z. (2003). Acceptance of Internet-based learning medium: the role of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Information & Management, 42(8), 1104-1095. Ong, C. H., & Lai, J. Y. (2006). Gender differences in perceptions and relationships among dominants of e-learning acceptance. Computers in Human Behavior, 22(5), 829-816. Spiros, A., Borotis, P., & Poulymenakou, A. (2004). E-Learning Readiness Components: Key Issues to Consider before Adopting E-learning interventions; ELearn 2004 Conference Proceedings. Stanford University. 1629-1622. Tell, A., Tella, A., Ayeni, C. O., & Omoba, R. O. (2007). Self-Efficacy and Use of Electronic Information as Predictors of Academic Performance. Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship, 8(2). Tella, A. Jr., & Tella, A. (2003). Self-efficacy and locus of control as predictors of academic achievement among secondary schools students in Olson State Unity Schools. Oyo Journal of Educational Psychology, 1(1), 41-32. Tham, C. M., & Werner, J. M. (2005). Designing and evaluating e-learning in higher education: A review and recommendations. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, TX Tsai, C. C., Lin, S. S. J., & Tsai, M. J. (2001). Developing an Internet Attitude Scale for high school students. Computers & Education. 37(1), 5141. Tsai, M. J. (1999). The impact of strategic and cooperative learning on Taiwanese eighth graders' computer achievement, attitudes, and anxiety. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, TX.

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Yi, M. Y., & Hwang, Y. J. (2003). Predicting the use of web-based information systems: self-efficacy, enjoyment, learning goal orientation, and the technology acceptance model. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 59, 449-431.