Figure 1

Group Differences in Willingness, Willingness Factors and Conscientiousness

Figure 1 shows average scores for the four groups of subjects across several of the outcome measures. The scores have been standardized as proportions of total raw score. Willingness scores were significantly higher for staff and faculty than for the two student groups. This difference is probably not as important as it appears. In all likelihood some staff and faculty who were low in willingness did not return surveys, whereas student data was collected in classrooms. Staff and faculty may be somewhat more willing to try educational technology because of their choice to work in an educational setting. Some students have decidedly non-technical career interests. What is surprising, perhaps, is that willingness scores are so high for both groups. Clearly these individuals have strong interest in trying new technologies. The slight variations found in two of the components of overall willingness - seeing practical benefits and intrinsic motivation - showed no significant differences across the four groups. In other words, students, staff and faculty tend to see about the same level of practical benefits and tend to feel similar intrinsic interests toward educational technology. The third set of graphed scores reveals that university students had significantly higher self-doubts about trying new technology. A closer analysis showed that gender differences, with female university students having higher scores, accounted for the variation in self-doubt. Of the Big 5 personality factors (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Non-Neuroticism or Calmness), only conscientiousness showed significant differences. Here the findings were a regular progression from junior college students to university students to staff and faculty. Conscientiousness is associated with maturity, so this is an expected pattern. It was not found that higher conscientiousness predicted greater willingness, however. So while students differ from staff and faculty on this factor, it does not explain the differences in disposition toward technology. TOP