Abstract
<p>Emotion is a key aspect of how non-specialists learn computing. The emotions included in Computing Self-Efficacy (CSE) research were identified prior to the emergence of recent models of emotion. There has been no attempt to inventory attitudes elicited while learning computing, using contemporary psycholinguistic models of subjectivity. This study of 58 medical students in Saudi Arabia used Appraisal analysis of weekly written personal responses to gain a comprehensive overview of emotions elicited during five weeks’ instruction on website-building. A Before-After Survey identified gains made in reported frequency of tasks performed outside class. A Weekly Attitude Survey identified the strength of 6 previously-identified CSE emotions, framed as positive-negative pairs. Participant journals showed that many emotions included in previous CSE emotions are not frequently-realised, and attitudes are changeable across the learning process. Overall, most positive-negative pairs do not behave correlatively, some persist where others progress, and incidence is a better guide than polarity to an attitude’s significance. Capacity and confidence suggest three stages in learning a computing task.</p>
Highlights
Computing is essential to most workplace tasks we do today
Computer Self-Efficacy (CSE) refers to self-regulatory actions undertaken by computing nonspecialists, including their beliefs about their CSE (Hasan, 2003) and the emotions evoked by computing tasks (Coffin & Mackintyre, 2000)
Research questions which guided this study include: what emotions and attitudes are elicited in nonspecialists while learning new computing tasks? How do positive-negative attitudinal pairs behave across the learning process? Are the emotions and beliefs they reveal the same as those which have previously been part of CSE studies?
Summary
Computing is essential to most workplace tasks we do today. Most people have to learn new computing tasks periodically, though they are not computing specialists. CSE refers to self-regulatory actions undertaken by computing nonspecialists, including their beliefs about their CSE (Hasan, 2003) and the emotions evoked by computing tasks (Coffin & Mackintyre, 2000) These subjective attitudes shape their CSE outcomes (Torkzadeh, Plfughoeft, & Hall, 1999). Saudi medical students report increasing computer use for personal, professional and academic purposes, over the past decade (Mansoor, 2002; Al-Fahad, 2009; Aldebasi & Ahmed, 2013) They have positive attitudes towards web-based communication (Al-Fahad, 2009; Alamro & Schofield, 2012), but experience high levels of job stress (Abdulghani, Alkanhal, Mahmoud, Ponnamperuma, & Alfaris, 2011). Research questions which guided this study include: what emotions and attitudes are elicited in nonspecialists while learning new computing tasks? Research questions which guided this study include: what emotions and attitudes are elicited in nonspecialists while learning new computing tasks? How do positive-negative attitudinal pairs behave across the learning process? Are the emotions and beliefs they reveal the same as those which have previously been part of CSE studies?
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