FEASIBILITY AND PILOT STUDIES

Feasibility and Pilot Studies



Feasibility and Pilot Studies

Hypothesis for the study

H0: The level of competence in using the Internet related computer technologies varies considerably among MSc students in Computing Department.

H1: The level of competence in using the Internet related computer technologies does not vary considerably among MSc students in Computing Department.

Research Method

Design

The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. This design is considered appropriate by the researcher because its aim is to provide quantitative or numeric description of some fraction of a sample selected from the population by asking relevant questions that address some unknown aspects of the population; and this is the main objective of the present study

Participants

The target population for this study comprised of all students of the Faculties of Science, Management Science and Education. The sample for this study consisted of two hundred and twenty seven (227) final year students (117 males = 51.54 %; 110 females = 48.46 %). The participants consisted of 34 % from Faculty of Science, 32 % from Faculty of Management Science, and 34 % from Faculty of education. The participation was voluntary. The age range of the participants was between 17 and 30 years. The mean age was 23.5 years, while the Standard deviation was 2.73. The sample was selected by simple random sampling technique.

Instruments

Three instruments were used for the collection of the data for this study. The instruments are Computer Use Scale (CUS), Self-Concept Scale (SCS) and Computer Competence Scale (CCS).

Computer Use Scale (CUS)

This is a self-developed instrument. The scale is a 7 item instrument measuring participants' frequency level of computer use. Participants were asked to respond to each of the items based on their level of computer use. Two different scaling were used. Items based on students' length of time in using computers, frequency of computer use based on hours and weeks, and the place of students' access to computers were multiple-choice objective test with four options, whereas items relating to frequency of skills' performance using the computers were raised using 4-point Likert scaling. The validity of the instrument was ensured by giving the initial instrument to computer science lecturers, experts in questionnaire construction for the evaluation of its adequacy, language, structure and relevance to content coverage. A test-retest method was explored by trial-testing the instrument on thirty students who were excluded from the sample in two weeks interval. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of ...