Academic Technology Failures: An Experimental Study of College Students' Motivation and Emotions

• In Event: 61.086 - Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: 61.086-3 - Motivational and Cognitive Processes: Computers, Video, Technology, and Online Learning

Abstract

Growing use of technology in education warrants research regarding relationships between students’ computer-related attitudes, affect, and motivation following technological difficulties. Weiner’s Attribution Theory (1985) proposes that perceived causal attributions made following failure events influence attribution-based emotions and subsequent actions. The present study assesses relationships between computer-based attributions and emotions following experimentally manipulated computer errors for college students from an eastern, research-intensive Canadian university (N = 182). The findings of this study presented significant relationships between computer-related attributions and emotions relative to experimental conditions. Results showed stable, external, and personally controllable attributions to significantly affect feelings of anxiety, helplessness, and anger (respectively). Implications and future directions for computer-related motivational processes are also discussed.

Authors

• Rebecca Lynn Maymon, McGill University

• Sonia Rahimi, McGill University

• Nathan C. Hall, McGill University