Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Mawhinney, et al. (1985) performed factor analysis and subscale reliability analysis to
determine if any subscales existed in the instrument. They concluded that there were no
sufficiently interpretable and reliable subscales, and treated the perception measures as
separate items. Since we were trying to compare our results to theirs we did not do any
subscale investigation and simply used the separate items as they did.
We performed our data collection during the first week of the semester. The question-
naire was distributed in conjunction with an objective computer literacy screening test that
we ordinarily perform at that time in this course. The students were not asked to identify
themselves when responding to this questionnaire. Mawhinney, et al. (1985) used a
somewhat different procedure. The first nine items were included in an initial survey (PRE).
Eight months later a follow-up survey using the 18 item questionnaire was mailed to
participants who provided their names and addresses.
RESULTS
Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations for the responses regarding
Hypothesis 1: First for the IS graduates perceived work style (IS) and then for their own
expected starting positions (SELF). The null hypothesis was tested using t-tests for paired
comparisons of the corresponding means. For all nine items the average perceptions of the
IS graduate's work style were significantly different from the average expectations of the
students' own starting positions (one item at p < .05 and the other eight items at p < .001).
Table 1. Perceptions of MSCD SELF vs. IS graduates work-styles
n = 519
Mean
Standard Deviation
Item
IS
SELF t-value Signif
IS
SELF f-value Signif
1
2.83
2.71
2.43
*
0.92
1.03
17.59
***
2
2.79
2.99
-3.67
***
1.02
1.17
18.32
***
3
2.78
2.24
10.94
***
0.93
1.00
0.02
4
3.58
4.19
-5.81
***
0.88
2.32
0.60
5
2.83
2.45
7.61
***
0.95
0.98
1.65
6
2.68
2.12
11.73
***
0.94
0.94
4.13
*
7
3.17
2.63
10.02
***
1.03
1.15
14.07
***
8
3.26
3.49
-4.82
***
0.88
1.01
9.93
**
9
3.33
2.89
8.30
***
0.92
1.15
32.61
***
(2-tailed) * p
<
0.05 ** p
<
0.01 *** p
<
0.001
