Gender and attitudes toward technology use: A meta-analysis
Introduction
In the past few decades, the development of technology, especially technology related to computing and information, has been fast and furious, which has resulted in the deep infiltration of technology use in almost every aspect of people's daily lives, including, among other things, education and career choices. In the current society, learning and developing a good command of some basic technology skills has become a necessary part of one's ability for successful education and career, and technology competency has become very important and critical for a wide range of careers. In this age of ubiquitous usage of technology, one issue that has received considerable attention from many educational researchers and psychologists is related to the potential gender difference in technology use, and some possible psychological culprits for such gender differences (Liao, 1999, Whitley, 1997). The difference between males and females in technology use is also a topic of interest for society in general (Brown, 2016).
Over the years, there has been a stereotypical view concerning technology use and gender: relative to men and boys, women and girls might have more negative attitudes towards technology and technology use, and they would be less actively engaged in technology-related activities and behaviors, which could have contributed to the so-called “technological gender gap” (Canada & Brusca, 1993). However, as technology is becoming much more ubiquitous than ever, and technology is becoming an important part of life especially for young people, women's attitudes toward technology use could vary and change across time (Buccheri, Gürber, & Brühwiler, 2011). In recent years, there has been a growing interest in studying the gender groups' attitudes towards technology or computers (Ardies et al., 2015, Potvin and Hasni, 2014; Teo, Milutinović, & Zhou, 2016). But the research findings from various individual studies about gender difference, or lack thereof, in the attitudes toward technology use have been inconsistent, making it difficult to draw any firm conclusion. For examples, Sáinz and López-Sáez (2010) reported more positive computer attitudes of boys than of girls, while Sáinz, Meneses, López, and Fàbregues (2016) concluded that young males did not show more positive attitudes towards technology use than girls. To address this issue of inconsistent research findings concerning possible gender difference in the attitudes toward technology use, studies of quantitative synthesis of the research literature on this issue were conducted many years ago (Liao, 1999, Whitley, 1997), suggesting that there were statistically significant gender differences in the attitudes toward technology use, with males having slightly more positive attitude toward technology use.
Over the past two decades, the society has witnessed an exponential growth in the technology development and infiltration in all aspects of the society, to the point that the society is now heavily dependent on technology to function, and technology has become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Given the rapid development and infiltration of technology in every aspect of the society over the last two decades, given the length of time after the last synthesis of research on this issue, and given the fact that many new studies have been conducted in this area since the last synthesis, it is unclear if the previous findings (e.g., Whitley, 1997) about this issue remain relevant and valid.
As discussed by some researchers (Tsai & Lin, 2004), as the technology use became more relevant and prominent in all aspects of the society and people's daily lives, concomitant changes might have occurred, and the gender differences related to technology use could have been narrowing. With such background, it is time that we revisit this issue and take a close look at the research findings after the last synthesis (Whitley, 1997) with regard to possible gender differences in the attitudes toward technology use. This study was designed for the purpose of providing an up-to-date quantitative synthesis about gender differences, or lack thereof, in the attitudes toward technology use.
On the issue of gender difference in attitudes toward technology use, the last two synthesis studies were done in late 1990s by Whitley (1997) and by Liao (1999), respectively. Because these two synthesis studies were so close to each other, it was expected that there should be considerable overlap in terms of the original studies included in these two meta-analytic studies. Unfortunately, a close look at these two studies revealed that one study (Liao, 1999) did not provide any meaningful information about the original studies included in the meta-analysis. In addition, this study exhibited a severe paucity of information on many other important aspects of a meta-analytic study (e.g., an extremely short and un-meaningful literature review, lack of information on why the moderator variables were used, total lack of literature review on these moderator variables, etc.). With the considerations of these serious defects, we decided that this conference meta-analysis paper needs to be excluded from our further consideration, and its findings would not be used for comparison purpose in our study. Consequently, in our study as described below, we only used the synthesis by Whitley (1997) for reference and comparison.
As shown in the synthesis by Whitley (1997), despite the inconsistencies among the individual studies, the research findings generally suggested that males showed more favorable attitudes toward technology use than females, confirming the general perception that gender differences existed with regard to technology use. Such gender difference might partially explain the gender gap in technology use and in the technology workforce. This observation and conclusion, however, may not remain valid after almost two decades, during which the society has witnessed the fast development and wide use of technology in all aspects of the society. As Tsai and Lin (2004) discussed, with the increasing ubiquity of technology and its prominence, changes related to technology use could have occurred; with more females acquiring more experiences related to technology, gender differences regarding technology use, including the attitudes toward technology use, could have been narrowing over the years.
Similar to the situation of inconsistent, and often contradictory, research findings about gender differences in attitudes towards technology use as summarized in Whitley (1997), studies in the recent two decades continue to provide mixed and inconsistent findings. On one hand, some researchers reported that males had more positive attitudes towards technology than do females (e.g., Chou et al., 2011, Colley and Comber, 2003, Collis and Williams, 2001, Durndell and Haag, 2002, Durndell et al., 2000, Hasan, 2010, Jackson et al., 2001, Kay, 2009, Kesici et al., 2009, Ong and Lai, 2006). On the other hand, some other research studies showed evidence for supporting the opposite conclusion: males exhibited more negative attitudes toward technology use than their female counterparts (e.g., Chen and Tsai, 2007, Johnson, 2011, Price, 2006, Tsai and Lin, 2004). Furthermore, no gender differences in attitudes toward technology use were reported by others (e.g., Imhof et al., 2007, North and Noyes, 2002). To understand these inconsistencies across the individual studies, it is necessary to conduct a systematic synthesis of these individual studies. Such a synthesis will not only help in shedding light on the general question of whether there remains a gender difference in the attitudes toward technology (if yes, how large such a difference is) as revealed by the studies conducted in the last two decades, but also help us to understand if some features of the individual studies may have contributed to the inconsistent findings across the individual studies.
In the area of research for studying attitudes toward technology use, one critical issue is a lack of conceptual clarity for the construct of “attitude.” As Whitley (1997) discussed, one possible reason for the inconsistent findings in the research literature concerning attitudes toward technology use was that, very often, researchers treated attitudes toward technology use as a unitary construct, rather than as a multi-faceted construct. As a result, different studies might have operationalized the construct of “attitudes” in different ways by focusing on different aspects of the broad concept of “attitudes.” In research practice, researchers' operationalization of the attitudes toward technology use may have different focus, such as feelings and emotions (e.g., comfort, anxiety, personal liking) associated with technology use (e.g., Colley and Comber, 2003, Durndell and Haag, 2002, Jackson et al., 2001, Schottenbauer et al., 2004), personal interest and enjoyment related to the use of technology (e.g., Bråten and Strømsø, 2006, Collis and Williams, 2001), personal beliefs about technology's social impact and usefulness (e.g., Collis and Williams, 2001, Huneke, 2002, Ong and Lai, 2006), or personal self-confidence or self-efficacy about one's ability in utilizing technology (e.g., Colley and Comber, 2003, Tsai and Tsai, 2010, Vekiri and Chronaki, 2008). Although these were generally conceptualized as representing the construct of “attitudes”, operationally, they were not necessarily the same, and they could function differently. For example, one may have a positive view or belief about the social impact and usefulness of technology, but he/she could have a low level of self-efficacy about his/her ability in utilizing technology. If these different components were treated as equivalent, or if “attitudes” were operationalized in different ways in different studies, it could have led to the inconsistent findings across the individual studies in this area.
In general, “attitudes” could be defined as “people's global evaluations of any object, such as oneself, other people, possessions, issues, abstract concepts, and so forth” (Petty, Fabrigar, & Wegener, 2003, p.752), and such “global evaluation” may consist of different facets: affect, beliefs, and self-efficacy (Whitley, 1997). After a review of the relevant research literature in the area of attitudes related to technology use, Whitley (1997) suggested that, in different studies, the different ways of operationalizing “attitudes” toward technology use could be categorized into five different, yet related, aspects: affect, beliefs, self-efficacy, mixed, and sex-role stereotype. Based on the descriptions of measures provided in each study about what aspect of “attitude” a particular study focused on, the present study categorized the “attitude” as used in each study into one the first four categories, as the last one (i.e., sex-role stereotype) was rare and almost non-existent in the studies we examined.
“Affect”, as related to technology use, is the emotional aspect of attitudes, and can be understood as “… To encompass emotions and relative transient moods and feelings” in performing technology-related tasks (Petty, Cacioppo, Sedikides, & Strathman, 1988), including constructs as anxiety, interest, enjoyment, fear and liking.
“Belief” is closely related to cognitive (cf. “affect” being emotional) aspect of attitudes, and could be construed as “an enduring organization of perceptions and cognitions about some aspect of the individual's world” (Krech & Crutchfield, 1948; as cited in Fishbein, 1962). Specifically related to technology use, “belief” refers to the extent to which one values technology use and its societal function.
“Self-efficacy” is generally known as the ‘‘generative capability in which cognitive, social and behavioral sub-skills must be organized into integrated courses of action to serve innumerable purpose’’ (Bandura, 1982). In terms of technology use, “self-efficacy” refers to peoples' belief in their own abilities to undertake a technology-related task successfully (McDonald & Siegall, 1992).
Some studies either did not provide sufficiently clear description about the aspects of “attitudes” assessed, or the items represented a mixture of different aspects. In this situation, it was not possible to divide the “attitude” into the three sub-types as described above. For the purpose of our synthesis, such case were categorized into “mixed” in terms of the aspects of attitude assessed in the study, following the suggestion of Whitley (1997).
The lack of clarity in defining and operationalizing “attitudes” toward technology use in research practice muddied the water of the empirical research findings, and made it difficult to draw any clear conclusions about gender differences in attitudes toward technology use. In our review, we attempted to organize and summarize the research studies based on the type of indicators (i.e., affect, belief, and self-efficacy) used in a study, as discussed below.
Technology-related affect mainly assessed emotional responses to technology use (Whitley, 1997). Anxiety is a negative affection, which has been defined as an emotional fear when dealing with technology-related tasks (Chua, Chen, & Wong, 1999). A number of studies have tried to assess the difference between male and female about technology-related anxiety. There is a tendency to find greater anxiety among the females than males about technology use (Durndell and Haag, 2002, Jackson et al., 2001, Schottenbauer et al., 2004). Similarly, some research reported that, although there had been some evidence of increased participation by girls in the technology-related tasks, boys remained to show more interest and more enjoyment than girls (Colley & Comber, 2003) in technology use. But on the other hand, Sam, Othman, and Nordin (2005) found that gender was not related to technology-related anxiety, and there was no significant difference in the computer anxiety levels between gender groups.
Technology-related beliefs including the cognitive components of acceptability and satisfaction of technology by professionals, positive and negative statements about technology and its positive effects on society (LaLomia & Sidowski, 1991). Considerable research has been conducted to assess whether gender is related people's cognition and perceived usefulness about technology use. For example, Collis and Williams (2001) found that boys were significantly more positive than girls with respect to the attitudes about the impact of computers on society. Ong and Lai (2006) came to similar conclusion. However, North and Noyes (2002) discussed that gender in general was not significantly related to cognitions towards computers. Their conclusions did not support the notion a gender gap, nor the literature that suggested that males had more positive cognitions than females.
Technology self-efficacy is the belief that one has the sufficient abilities and skills to be successful when dealing with a technology related task (McDonald & Siegall, 1992). Numerous studies were conducted to investigate whether, and how, self-efficacy would influence or affect information technology use. Some research showed that males appeared to be more confident and knowledgeable in using technology-related skills (Yau & Cheng, 2012). However, some other research reported no gender differences in this aspect (Compton, Burkett, & Burkett, 2003), or, although less common, even findings to the contrary (Compton et al., 2003, Ray et al., 1999). Cooper and Lucas (2006) and other researchers discussed that gender difference in self-efficacy might have resulted from differences of individual psychological states, behaviors and motivation. In the context of using technology, gender and one's self-efficacy could be related, based on one's perception of his/her own abilities as related to a particular task. Because self-efficacy would influence the choices that one would make, the effort that one would put forth, and one's persistence when facing obstacles and failure (Ackerman & Wolman, 2007), any gender difference in self-efficacy in technology use would undoubtedly have implications on gender groups' general attitudes toward technology use.
Some research suggested possible differences related to attitudes toward technology across cultures and societies. The use of technology would not occur in a vacuum, but instead, in broader social and cultural contexts. For example, Collis and Williams (2001) discussed that cultural and regional difference was one critical factor in influencing people's acceptance and use of Internet-based learning resources. There was research suggesting that, in different countries, people might have different perceptions and views about information technology (Brosnan and Lee, 1998, Li and Kirkup, 2007). For instance, Li and Kirkup (2007) found that attitudes toward Internet usage between Chinese and British students were related to both culture and gender. Makrakis (1992) also showed that attitudes toward computers were culturally related. It is also plausible that people from different regions may have different understanding about technology use as a result of uneven economic development levels and differences in the accessibility of technology. Such factors may lead to differences in terms of how gender groups view technology use in different cultural contexts.
In summary, as discussed above, with the rapid development of technology and technology's infiltration into all aspects of the modern society, technology competency has become more important and critical than ever in shaping one's career and life. With the long-standing concern about the gender gap in technology workforce, empirical research about possible gender differences in attitudes toward technology use has been active over the past few decades, but the inconsistent findings across the individual studies make it difficult to draw any clear conclusions about this issue. As a result, it remains unclear whether any meaningful gender differences exist in attitudes toward technology use. Since the quantitative synthesis of the relevant research literature (Whitley, 1997), almost twenty years has passed. Moreover, the period of the past twenty years has witnessed the fastest growth and development of computing and information technology. Because of these considerations, there is a strong need for a new quantitative synthesis of the relevant research literature concerning gender and attitudes toward technology use. The primary purpose of this study was to provide a quantitative synthesis of the relevant empirical studies on the issue of gender differences in attitudes toward technology uses. Such a quantitative synthesis of the empirical findings has the potential of providing insights into the relevant issues in the research related to attitudes toward technology use that, otherwise, would not be readily available or obvious from individual studies (Fan and Chen, 2001). Specifically, we focus on the following two research questions:
- 1.
Are there gender group differences in attitudes toward technology use as reported in the previous empirical studies over the last two decades? How do the findings of the current meta-analysis compare with those reported from the previous meta-analysis many years ago?
- 2.
What are the study features (e.g., attitude dimension, regions of sampling, age group of respondents, publication year, and publication type) that could partially explain the inconsistencies in the findings concerning the gender group differences in attitudes toward technology use across individual studies in the literature?
Section snippets
Meta-analysis
Meta-analysis was described as “the analysis of analyses…, statistical studies of a large collection of analysis results from individual studies for the purpose of integrating the findings” (Glass, 1976, p. 3). In a meta-analysis, the seemingly inconsistent or contradictory findings from different individual studies were quantitatively synthesized based on a systematic approach. Effect sizes, “a metric of the magnitude of a result that is independent of scale of measurement and sample size” (
General findings
Table 2 presents some general findings, and the heterogeneity test results for the overall attitude and its dimensions across the effect sizes from individual studies. For the effect sizes collected for this meta-analysis, the average sample sizes for male and female groups are 258 and 271 respectively. But the sample sizes varied considerably across the studies, with the smallest sample sizes being 19 for male group and 7 for female group respectively, and the largest sample sizes being 2350
Conclusions
This meta-analysis study quantitatively summarized prior empirical studies on gender differences in attitudes toward technology use over about seventeen years. Several findings stood out. First, in general, males showed more favorable attitude toward technology use than females, especially on the dimensions of belief (e.g., believing in the societal usefulness of technology) and self-efficacy (e.g., self-confidence in one's ability to learn and use technology effectively). These findings
Limitations and future directions
This synthesis study has some weaknesses, and also points to some future research directions. Although some differences across geographical regions were observed, it is unclear how such findings could be explained, due to a lack of understanding about possible social and cultural norms and factors that could influence gender groups’ attitude toward technology use in different cultural/societal contexts. This issue should be further explored in future research.
The relationship between age and
Acknowledgment
The research was supported by a grant (CPG grant RDG002/FED-FXT/2012) from the University of Macau to the second author, Xitao FAN. The authors of this paper deeply appreciate the support.
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(An asterisk indicates that the study was used in the meta-analysis).