High school pupils’ attitudes and self-efficacy of using mobile devices

This paper regards a study aiming to investigate junior high school pupils’ attitudes and self-efficacy of using mobile devices. A 25-item questionnaire was administered to 260 pupils aged 12-15 years old, in Greece. Pupils’ attitudes were positive, and four factors were extracted, “perceived usefulness”, “affection”, “perceived control” and “behaviour”. Regarding pupils’ self-efficacy, one factor was revealed and this was significantly correlated with all attitude factors. Most of the pupils (over 87%) expressed high self-efficacy in using mobile devices. Higher self-efficacy was linked to positive perspectives and feelings, to greater willingness to use mobile devices, and to favorable perceptions towards their independent control. It is suggested to describe pupils’ attitudes of using mobile devices with respect to discrete dimensions. Gender or age differences in attitudes were very small. The mobile devices attitudes and self-efficacy questionnaire is suggested to be used with other adolescent populations of different countries, in order to reveal possible similarities and differences.

"pupils expressed positive attitudes towards using mobile devices. More specifically, they expressed high willingness to use MD, positive feelings, and favorable perceptions towards independent control of mobile devices" (Nikolopoulou& Gialamas, 2017, p. 63) "the majority of the sample in this study expressed strong confidence in using mobile devices; over 87% of the sample reported high levels of self-efficacy when using mobile devices" (Nikolopoulou& Gialamas, 2017, p. 63) "higher self-efficacy was linked to positive perspectives and feelings, to greater willingness to use mobile devices, and to favorable perspectives towards independent control of mobile devices"(Nikolopoulou& Gialamas, 2017, p. 64) "(a) Gender or age differences in attitudes were isolated and very small, while there were no differences in self-efficacy, and (b) none of the attitudes and self-efficacy factors was significantly correlated to the frequency of computer use (correlations were very close to zero)"(Nikolopoulou& Gialamas, 2017, p. 64)