Enrollment in Computer Courses by College Students

Abstract

Selected correlates of students’ completed and planned enrollments in college-level computer courses were examined. A total of 195 college freshman and sophomore students completed instruments measuring computer attitudes, computer attributions, and selected personal demographics. Results of a multiple-regression analysis indicate perceptions of the usefulness of computers in future educational and career plans, self-evaluation of one’s own computer proficiency, failure-task attributions, and the stereotyped view of computers as a male domain combine to function as significant (alpha = .001) predictors of enrollment in computer courses. Furthermore, college students who do not stereotype computers as a male domain tend to more often have the attitude that computers will be useful to them in their education and careers than do students who stereotype computers as a male domain.