Attitudes of college students towards computers: A comparative study in the United States and the Middle East

摘要

The trend towards global computer-based systems and concerns about the issues associated with transborder data flows raise the need for an understanding of the perceptions and attitudes towards computers of people in different countries. This paper describes computer attitudes of college students from two geographic areas — the United States and Kuwait. The 20-statement Computer Attitude Scale (CAS; Nickell & Pinto, 1986) was used to collect responses of the students. Two hundred eighty-six students from a private university in the United States and 130 students from the University of Kuwait participated in the study. Scores on the CAS were found to be significantly different between students from the two countries. Scores were also found to be related to certain cultural and background characteristics of students in each country.