Comparing attitudes toward technology of third and fourth grade students in Virginia relative to their exposure to technology

The purpose of this study was to compare student attitudes toward technology of third and fourth grade students in Virginia relative to their exposure Lo technology education. The instrument used to measure student attitudes towards technology was a modified version of the Pupil's Attitudes Toward Technology - USA instrument developed at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

The research design was a quasi-experimental, nonequivalent groups posttest only design. The research methodology utilized was factorial analysis of variance. The four independent variables were Gender, Grade Level, Treatment/Control Group, and Geographic Area. The dependent variable was student attitudes toward technology. All hypotheses were tested at the .05 alpha level of significance.

The NASA funded project, Mission 21, was used as the treatment on 459 third and fourth graders in Virginia over the period of five months. Students in the same schools and grade levels as Mission 21 students, but who were not exposed to Mission 21, served as the control group. The control group contained 399 students.

The study reported a significant difference between boys and girls attitudes towards technology. There was a significant difference in student attitudes toward technology between the Mission 21 students and the control group. There was no difference found in student attitudes towards technology by grade level. There was a significant difference of student attitudes towards technology between geographic areas (urban, suburban, and rural areas).

The most common definition of technology from the Mission 21 students (treatment group) was "technology solves problems". The most common definition of technology from the control group was "I don't know".

The results of the study provided evidence that both boys and girls who participated in the third and fourth grade Mission 21 project, did in fact, have a substantially more positive attitude towards technology than those students who did not.