The Effects of Learning WWW and the Computer Attitudes on Technology Education Programs

The purpose of this study was to explore both the effects of learning WWW and the computer attitudes on technology education programs for elementary students in Taiwan. Both pretest and posttest were conducted in this study. 153 subjects were selected from fifth and sixth grade in Sir-Ko elementary school at Taichung County. The Computer Attitude Scale (CAS) was used to serve as the pretest and posttest, which was administered before and after the WWW instruction. The students were continuously conducted a WWW instruction for 8 weeks and the total 320 teaching minutes. A WWW Learning Achievement Scale (LAS) was used to assess the students' learning achievement after the WWW instruction. Eleven results of this study were concluded as the followings: 1. Students had good skills on both operating browser and searching data. 2. Students had poor skills on both gathering data and arranging data. 3. Sixth grade students had higher achievement of learning WWW than the fifth graders. 4. No significant difference was found (1)between male and female students, and (2) between high computer attitude and low computer attitude regarding the achievement of learning WWW. 5. Students who had high computer attitude demonstrated more favorable computer attitudes before the WWW instruction than those had low computer attitude. 6. No significant difference was found (1)between the fifth and the sixth graders, and (2) between male and female students regarding the computer attitudes before the WWW instruction. 7. Female students demonstrated more favorable computer attitudes after the WWW instruction than male students. 8. No significant difference was found: (1)between the fifth and the sixth graders, and (2) between high computer attitude and low computer attitude regarding the computer attitudes after the WWW instruction. 9. No significant effect was found among all students, the fifth and the sixth grade students, and male and female students regarding the computer attitudes. 10. Female students and students of low computer attitude demonstrated more favorable computer attitudes after the WWW instruction. 11. Students of high computer attitude demonstrated less favorable computer attitudes after the WWW instruction. Recommendations for this study were to consider students' differences among different gender, grades, and computer attitudes of learning WWW on technology education programs. Recommendations for the future research were to replicate the study with a different population, and clarify relationships between students' achievement of learning WWW and other related variables.