Does gender gap on computer anxiety exist?

Abstract

Does gender gap on computer anxiety exist? To answer this question a meta-analysis was performed to synthesize existing research of gender differences on computer anxiety. Sixty-one studies published between 1984 to 2007 were located from 3 sources, and the samples in these studies were across 19 countries in five continents. The quantitative data of these studies were transformed into Effect Size (ES). The overall grand mean of the study-weighted ES was 0.24. The results suggest that male subjects had slightly lower computer anxiety than female subjects. When comparing the ES by year of publication, studies published in 1990s had higher gender gap than studies published in 1980s and 2000s. Also, when analyzing the ES by target group, teachers and adults have higher gander gap. While researchers has hypothesized that there are gender gap on computer anxiety, the results provide an accumulated research-based evidence to clarify this hypothesis.