| Abstract: | Previous research has revealed a measurable decrease in student attitude towards the use of computers when they are integrated into teaching. This fall in attitude is thought to reflect the initial diffculties encountered when attempting to use computers and learn acounting techniques at the same time. However, it is postulated that once the students' computer ability has achieved an adequate level, then attitude will recover. This paper reports the results of a continuing investigation into the attitude of second-year undergraduate accounting students towords the use of computers in their studies. The method used was to ask students to complete a questionnaire about their attitudes and self-assessed ability and to undergo a written test of their computer/spreadsheet Knowledge. These data were merged with those from earlier testing to give a two-year data set. The results indicate that the attitude of students to using computers generally continued to fall significantly. However, their ability to use computers and spreadsheets rose. In the case of spreadsheets, this rise in ability was significant. It was found that students who took, as options, additional courses which integrated computers had more positive attiudes and achieved higher scores in the computer Knowledge test than those who did not. This implies that the initial fall in attitude experienced in previous studies was not an isolated temporary phenomenon. The imporvement in ability is observed, but this did not have the expected effect. |
