Taiwanese adolescents' perceptions and attitudes regarding the Internet: exploring gender differences

Adolescence, Winter, 2004 by Chin-Chung Tsai, Chia-Ching Lin

The remaining nine items, the final part of the questionnaire, were included to assess adolescents' Internet self-efficacy, modified from some original items developed by Tsai and Tsai (2003). Internet self-efficacy indicated self-perceived confidence in using the Internet. It was believed here that Internet self-efficacy should be regarded as a part of attitudes toward the Internet. Through a series of exploratory factor analyses, the 9 items were divided into two factors (subscales); the first one addressed adolescents' Internet self-efficacy in general (5-item general self-efficacy subscale), while the second probed their efficacy for Internet-based communication or interaction (4-item communicative self-efficacy subscale). The following are two items from the subscales: "I think I know how to use a Web browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator," and "I think I can talk to others in online chatrooms." These items also used a 6-point Likert scale, ranging from "every confident" to "very unconfident." The reliability coefficients for these two subscales were .84 and .78.

Students' questionnaire responses representing their perceptions and attitudes toward the Internet were scored as follows. A "strongly agree" (or "very confident") response was assigned a score of 6 and a "strongly disagree" (or "very unconfident") response was assigned a score of 1, while items stated in an opposite way were scored in a reverse manner. The average score of the items in a subscale was calculated to represent the adolescent's views; the gender differences on the perceptions and each subscale of the attitudes were then explored.

RESULTS

Gender Differences in Perceptions

Table 1 presents gender differences on perceptions of the Internet. By analyzing the responses on the first four items, it was revealed that male and female adolescents' scores showed a statistical difference on all four items. On the items of perceiving the Internet as technology, tool, and tour, females scored significantly higher than did males. However, on the toy item, males expressed more agreement than did females; that is, females considered the Internet as a technology or a (traveling) tool, but males tended to consider the Internet more as a toy. This finding may indicate that females held more pragmatic views of the Internet, and males believed that they could acquire more pleasure and enjoyment from it.

Gender Differences in Attitudes

As shown in Table 2, males' scores were significantly higher than those of females on the subscales of perceived usefulness and perceived control. These findings suggest that males tended to highlight the value of using the Internet as well as to display their ability to use it. However, on the subscales of affection and behavior, both males and females displayed statistically similar responses. Many studies have noted that female adolescents (or college students) felt higher anxiety and lower confidence when using the Internet. They also expressed more negative attitudes toward computers and the Internet (e.g. Durndell & Haag, 2002; Kadijevich, 2000; Tsai et al., 2001; Whitley, 1997). The present study revealed a somewhat different finding in which females did not differ from their male counterparts for the affection and behavior aspects of using the Internet. One possible interpretation may be that female adolescents now have more experience in using the Internet. Tsai et al. (2001) noted that as adolescents have more Internet experience, they tend to have more positive feelings, lower anxiety, and higher confidence in using it. The findings in the behavior subscale of this study further strengthened this interpretation. The adolescents in this study did not show a significant difference in the behavior subscale, suggesting that both males and females had similar opportunities to use the Internet. This finding concurs with that of Schumacher and Morahan-Martin (2001)--that gender differences in computer experience and skill levels have progressively diminished.