Three years ago Drew University began a campus-wide effort to integrate microcomputers into courses across the entire liberal arts curriculum. This paper summarizes the results of 14 studies that have assessed student and faculty responses to this effort, and concludes by suggesting some implications of these studies for psychologists involved in the design and evaluation of similar programs.In the fall of 1984, Drew University began a campuswide initiative to integrate microcomputers into courses across the entire liberal arts curriculum. Sincethat time, each enteringfreshman has been issueda microcomputer with supporting software. Duringthe first year of the program, faculty members and most administrative offices were supplied with similarpackages, 80 microcomputers were placed in public work stations throughout the campus, and the Computer Center staff was expanded. Training sessions for faculty and students have been offered throughout the 21/2 years of the program.At Drew, members of the psychology department have been centrally involved in instigating, planning, administering, and evaluating this effort. As other colleges and universities move toward similarcomputer-intensive environments, it is likely that psychologists at these institutions will be importantparts of these efforts. In this paper, we summarize somehighlights of our research and experienceby focusing on someimplications of our work for others who may become involved in similarprojects. Unlike most of the other papers in this session, we concern ourselves not so much with teaching and research applications in psychology per se, but rather with implicationsfor psychology's part in implementing educational applications of computers across a campus.To date, we have conducted about 14 separate studies assessing studentuses, attitudes, and proficiencies prior to, during, and after the freshman year. We have also investigated faculty uses, attitudes, and proficiencies; compared faculty users and nonusers; evaluated student and faculty training; and assessed specific educational applications. Because of the amount of data, we limitthis report to a few overalltrendsillustrated by specific findings. We organize these in the form of seven challenges for psychologists.
THE CHALLENGES
Findways to convert general positive attitudes about the valueofmicrocomputers in education intobeliefsthatAddress reprint requests to Edward A. Domber, Psychology Department, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940.
microcomputers will benefitindividuals in specificways.Both faculty and students speak much more favorably about computers and computing whenthey refer to computers in general than when referring to their own use of computers. For example, students and faculty strongly endorse such statements as "computers are a constructive additionto liberal arts education" and disagree with such statements as "computers are only relevantin math and science." Yet students are much less enthusiastic when rating the value of specific computer exercises for themselves, or when resp...
