Attitudes towards digital educational technologies among university students: concept, measurement, and gender differences

Abstract

Background. In Russian psychology, there is a shortage of psychodiagnostic tools for measuring the university students’ attitudes towards digital educational technologies (DETs), which is important for the optimal digitalization of educational process. Objectives. The study had its purpose to define the concept of “attitude towards DETs”, develop the scale for diagnostics of attitudes towards DETs among university students, and reveal gender differences in their attitudes towards DETs. Study Participants. The study involved 317 Russian university students (157 male and 160 female) aged 17 to 35 years. Methods. Review of scientific literature on the research problem; the “Attitudes towards DETs Scale for University Students” (ATDETS-US) developed by the authors; survey to identify socio-demographic characteristics and opinions of respondents; methods of mathematical and statistical data processing (Cronbach's Alpha and McDonald's Omega coefficients, confirmatory factor analysis, Mann — Whitney U test, Shapiro — Wilk test). Results. The concept of “attitude towards DETs” was defined based on the integration of the main provisions of Myasishchev’s Personality Attitudes Theory and the Tripartite Model of Attitude “ACB”. The authors have developed and validated the “Scale for diagnostics of university students’ attitudes towards DETs” including emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The data obtained by means of the developed Scale allowed to establish a predominance of positive attitudes towards DETs among the majority of students in the study, which was more pronounced among girls than among boys. Conclusions. The scale developed in the study for diagnostics of the university students’ attitudes towards DETs is based on the theoretical concepts of attitudes that consist of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components. The scale has a three-factor structure, exhibits good reliability and is suitable for implementation in the research and practical developments to enhance the unavoidable processes of digitalization in higher education. Gender differences revealed female students to have a more favorable attitude towards digital technologies in education.

Keywords

• digital educational technologies
• attitude
• university students
• digitalization of education
• gender differences