Technostress: Computer Self-Efficacy, Internet Attitudes, and Computer Anxiety in Italian Teachers

1. TECHNOSTRESS Filippo La Paglia*, Barbara Caci**, and Daniele La Barbera* Department of Neuroscience *, Department of Psychology ** University of Palermo A Research about Computer Self-Efficacy, Internet Attitudes and Computer Anxiety CYBERTHERAPY13 –June 2008 San Diego, California, USA

2. The focus of the research Technostress An emergent psychological disorder experienced by individuals when they interact with technologies (Brod, 1984)

3. Techno-stressed people • Negative attitudes • Negative thoughts • Negative feelings toward technologies • Physical and psychological symptoms when they manage directly or indirectly hi-tech products. Weil and Rosen (1995)

4. Technostress or Computer-anxiety? Computer-anxiety • A sort of aversion, fear, apprehension, hostility or resistance toward computers • A negative emotional that a person experienced when he/she is using a computer. Technostress is also labelled as computer-anxiety or computer-phobia. It is more similar to a state than a trait anxiety. (Cambre e Cook, 1987; Chua, Chen, e Wong, 1999).

5. Computer-anxiety as a multidimensional construct Six-Factors Model of Beckers and Schmidt (2001)

6. Some questions What are the causal inter-relationships between the psychological variables that influenced computer-anxiety? • Computer-anxiety is an antecedent of negative attitudes toward technologies or of low computer-self-efficacy levels? Thatcher and Perrewè (2002) • Computer-anxiety is a consequence of low computer-self-efficacy levels? Marakas, Johnson, and Palmer (2000)

7. The rationale of the research Computer-anxiety is a kind of state anxiety, which is influenced more by cognitive variables as negative self-efficacy believes or internet attitudes than by low computer-expertise.

8. The purpose of the research Analyzing in a population of Italian teachers the causal relationships of computer-anxiety among with: • Computer-expertise • Computer self-efficacy • Internet attitudes H1: Low levels of computer self-efficacy and Internet attitude would predict high levels of computer-anxiety.

9. Methods Participants 77 teachers (29M; 48F),aged between 28 and 61 years old (mean age 43yr; SD= 9),were random selected from different Primary Schools of Palermo. Measures • Computer-Expertise Questionnaire (Chifari, Ottaviano, D’Amico, & Cardaci, 2000). • Computer Self-efficacy Scale (Chifari, Ottaviano, D’Amico, & Cardaci, 2000; Eachus & Cassidy Scale, 1997) • Computer Anxiety Rating Scale (Weil & Rosen, 1995) • Internet Attitude Scale (Sam, Othman & Nordin, 2005).

10. Results Participants scored higher on: Computer Self-Efficacy (mean score=4.4) Internet Attitudes (mean score=3.9). Participants scored lower on: Computer-Expertise (mean score=2.5) Computer-Anxiety (mean score=2.4) Italian teachers exhibit moderate levels of computer-expertise, but perceive themselves as highly efficiency in computer usage. Moreover, they reveal positive attitudes toward the Internet and low levels of computer-anxiety.

11. Results –Correlation analysis (Pearson’ s r) 1 2 3 4 Computer- Expertise (1) ― Computer Self-efficacy (2) .453* ― Internet Attitude (3) .408* .360* ― Computer Anxiety (4) -.525* -.641* -.554* ― Note - * Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

12. Results: Regression analysis Independent Variables B DS B β Computer-Expertise .147 .025 .005 Computer Self-efficacy -.370* .046 -.81 Internet Attitude -.231 .078 -.025 R= .81; R2= .69; F(3,73) = 54.48; p<.0001. Low scores on Computer-Self-efficacy scale (β=-.046; p<.01) significantly predict Computer-anxiety. Scores on Computer-Expertise Scale and Internet Attitude Scale doesn’t predict significantly Computer-anxiety scores.

13. Conclusion • Computer-anxiety depends more on psychological competences of efficacy towards technologies than on effective technological skills in computer usage. • Computer-self efficacy beliefs to be able of managing technologies satisfactory as well as to fell confident toward tham are responsible for the reduction of computer-anxiety individuals’ levels. • Attitudes towards the Internet seem not influence an individuals’ computer-anxiety levels.

14. In order to prevent the emergence of individuals’ computer-anxiety … • Computer-anxiety de-sensitizing psychological treatments could be oriented: • not to enlarge individuals’ cold technological notions or their expertise toward computer • but to step up individuals’ self-confidence beliefs to manage such peculiar technologies as computers and the Internet. • Training programs about technologies that involve mainly teachers should be based on the improvement of individuals’ trusts and self-efficacy beliefs toward technologies more than on the improvement of mere technological skills.

15. Thanks for your attention! Email: filippolapaglia@libero.it labadan@unipa.it Neuroscience Department, University of Palermo