DETERMINANTS OF STUDENT TEACHER COMPUTER LITERACY ACHIEVEMENT

The achievement of 98 student teachers enrolled in an introductory computer literacy course for novices was measured and correlated with measures of their computer attitudes, locus and control for academic achievement, gender, age, prior word processing and computer experience, and entry-level computer literacy. Computer literacy achievement was found to be correlated, at the P < 0.05 level, with prior programming experience and with entry-level computer literacy, and at the P < 0.01 level, with the perceived locus of control for academic achievement with internally oriented students out-performing their externally oriented peers. Entry level computer literacy showed no correlation with an internal perception of locus of control for achievement. Therefore, it appeared that the achievement levels of the internally oriented students resulted entirely from their efforts during the course and not from a base of prior knowledge. Age and gender had no correlation with computer literacy achievement.