Optimism, interest and gender equality: comparing attitudes of university students in Latvia and Ukraine toward IT learning and work

ABSTRACT

Global processes of digitalisation are transforming learning and work. University students in all nations are under pressure to develop positive and productive technology-related skills and dispositions. This study investigates the attitudes of 1,006 Latvian and Ukrainian university students towards information technology. Survey responses from the Attitudes towards Information Technology scale were collected, validated, analysed and interpreted. By generating group-response profiles and conducting multivariate analyses of variance, the attitudinal orientations of participants were compared, and significant differences between gender and nation subgroups identified. From a gender perspective, one noteworthy finding is that males in both countries expressed a significantly higher interest in learning about IT than females. From a national perspective, Ukrainians reported significantly higher optimism about IT in the workplace than Latvians. This study produces several novel findings addressing the attitudes of Eastern European university students towards information technology and their readiness for digitalised learning and work.

KEYWORDS:

• Information technology attitudes
• technology readiness
• digitalisation
• higher education
• Ukraine
• Latvia

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the contributions of Dr Velta Lubkina and Dr Irena Zogla, and the enthusiastic participation of students at Rēzekne Academy of Technologies, Latvia and Ternopil National Economic University, Ukraine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Two projects supported this article: (a) Implementations of transformative digital learning in doctoral programmes of pedagogical science in Latvia [lzp-2018/2-0180], and (b) Gender aspects of digital readiness and development of human capital in regions of Ukraine and Latvia [Nr. LV-UA/2018/3].