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University of Massachusetts Amherst
SARIS - Student Affairs Research, Information and Systems
Computer Use Survey (F98-F)

Executive Summary: The results of a survey of UMass undergraduates show that over 90% use a computer at least a few times per week. More than two-thirds own their own computer and over three-quarters of these students brought their computer with them when they first entered UMass. Most respondents’ computers are running some form of Windows, with Windows 95 being the most popular and Windows 98 the next most popular. Almost all computer-users use computers to do word-processing, and a large majority (89%) also use them to surf the WWW. Almost two-thirds of students usually get software help from someone they know. Ten percent usually get help from either the OIT help desk or other on-campus support services. Women are more likely than men to ask someone they know for help whereas men are more likely than women to get help by reading manuals, or using Internet help sites. Almost two-thirds of respondents use their own personal printer to print documents and a fifth use a friend’s printer. When asked about the Internet, four-fifths of respondents said that they have an OIT computer account. Respondents were most likely to use the Internet for reading e-mail and for obtaining information needed for their academic courses. Almost half of students use public computer labs on campus and 90 percent of these students express satisfaction with the hours of operation. On average, respondents indicated that they have been using computers for about 7 years.

On Tuesday, November 3, 1998, Project Pulse conducted a telephone survey for the Office of Information Technologies (OIT) to investigate students’ computer use and needs. Interviewers attempted to contact 1,186 students who were randomly selected from the entire population of undergraduates. Interviewers successfully contacted 740 students and 615 (83%) of those contacted agreed to be interviewed. See Table 1 for the final disposition of the sample and Table 2 for a demographic summary of the respondents. The response rate for the survey was 52 percent. Sampling error was approximately 4 percentage points.

Computer Use

First, respondents were asked a set of general questions about their use of computers, including how often they use a computer, their typical access to a computer, whether they own a laptop or a desktop, whether they brought a computer from home when they first arrived at UMass, and what their primary operating system was. Two-thirds (66.2%, n=407) of respondents indicated that they use a computer at least once a day, and another quarter (26%, n=160) indicated that they use a computer a few times per week. Men were slightly more likely than women to report using a computer “several times a day,” (41.1% vs. 31.5%, c²=7.82, p<.05). Less than 5% of the respondents indicated that they use a computer a few times per semester or never; these individuals were not asked any further questions pertaining to computer use and were skipped to demographic questions. Figure 1 details respondents’ computer use.

Figure 1: "Which of the following best describes how often you use a computer?"

More than two-thirds of respondents said that they own their own personal computer and another 12% indicated that they have access to public machines on campus. Figure 2 shows the breakdown.

Figure 2: "Which of the following best describes your typical access to a personal computer?"

Over four-fifths (82.8%, n=328) of computer owners own a desktop machine, 14.4% own a laptop, and 2.8% indicated that they own both a desktop and a laptop. Over three-quarters (78.8%, n=309) of these computer-owners brought their computer with them from home when they first entered UMass, up 14.4 percentage points from 1996. Most respondents’ (91%) personal computers run some version of Windows, with over half (58.5%) of the respondents using Windows 95, and another quarter (26.9%) using Windows 98. Figure 3 documents the breakdown by operating system.

Figure 3: "What is the primary operating system on your PC?"

Use of and Help with Software Applications

Next, respondents were read a list of software applications and asked to indicate whether they use any of them on a regular basis. By far, almost all computer-users use some type of word processing application (95.5%) and close to 90% (88.8%) indicated that they use a Web browser on a regular basis. Overall, men were more likely than women to use every type of software application on a regular basis except database applications. Figure 4 documents these differences by sex.

Figure 4: Proportion of students using different applications on a regular basis, by sex

The trend also suggests that the proportion of students who use spreadsheet and database applications increases as class year increases. Figure 5 illustrates this trend.

Figure 5: Proportion of students using different applications on a regular basis, by class

Next, respondents indicated where or how they usually receive help with software applications. Almost two-thirds (62.9%, n=364) usually ask for help from someone they know. Almost a tenth (8.5%) seek help from either the OIT help desk or another on-campus help service, and another 9.4% seek help by reading manuals that come with software, by contacting the software manufacturer’s technical support, or by using the Internet. Overall, women are more likely than men to ask for help from someone they know (73.8% vs. 57.9%); conversely, the trend also suggests that men are more likely to use manuals, or the Internet to get help, and to indicate that they have not needed any help with their software. Figure 6 highlights these sex differences in help-seeking behavior.

Figure 6: Proportion of students getting help with software from various sources, by sex

Seniors were less likely than students in other classes to ask someone they know for help. Seniors were more likely to get help from various on-campus sources such as OIT, or to read manuals or get information from the Internet. Figure 7 shows these trends.

Figure 7: Proportion of students getting help with software from various sources, by class

Printing Documents and Computer Accounts

When asked, “Where or how do you usually print your documents,” almost two-thirds (62.3%, n=361) indicated that they use their personal printer. Another fifth (19.5%) said they use a friend’s printer, and a smaller proportion (13%) use the OIT public PC labs on campus. Figure 8 shows these proportions.

Figure 8: "Where or how do you usually print your documents?"

Computer Accounts and Internet Connections

Next, students were asked whether they have any University-provided computer accounts and/or commercial accounts. Four-fifths of respondents (80.7%) indicated that they have an OIT computer account, up 23.7 percentage points from 1996. A small fraction of respondents (12.8%) have other University accounts such as ones from the computer science department, math, or other such departments that maintain their own Internet connections. Men are significantly more likely to have such an account (19.2% vs. 6.6%, c² =20.67, p=.00001) than are women. Slightly more than a third (38.2%) also have a commercial or non-University account such as America Online or JavaNet, a local Internet provider. First-year students are more likely to maintain a commercial account than are others (49.7% vs. 30% for sophomores, 33.1% for juniors, and 33.1% for seniors, c² =17.39, p=.00059). Of those who have an OIT account (n=465), the majority (57.1%) have that account exclusively whereas 39.7% own one other account. A small proportion (7%) have all three types of accounts.

Of those individuals who owned an OIT computer account and their own computer, only a quarter (25.4%) use a modem to connect to the Internet, whereas 37.6% connect via a TAU (which is a type of modem specifically designed for the University phone system), and 31.4% connect via an Ethernet card.

Internet Use

The next set of questions pertained to Internet use. Respondents were asked about a variety of Internet activities such as reading e-mail, newsgroups, and engaging in on-line chatting. Figure 9 shows that the most common activities that students engage in on the Internet are reading e-mail and accessing information about their academic courses. Students are least likely to use the Internet for building Web pages or reading newsgroups. Overall, men were more likely than women to read newsgroups, use the Internet for academic courses (such as looking up course assignments), and build Web pages. Of those who use e-mail (n=505), two-fifths (42.3%) use Pine or Elm, which are Unix-based text mailers, whereas a similar proportion (39.1%) use graphical mailers such as Eudora, Netscape Mail or Microsoft Outlook. The remaining 18.7% indicated that they use some other type of mailer.

Figure 9: Proportion of students using the Internet for different tasks

Public Computer Labs

The last set of questions asked students about their use of public labs on campus such as ones located at the library, or in the residence halls. Almost half (49%) of students reported using at least one of these labs on campus, and of these individuals (n=283), 16.7% use the labs “almost daily,” 37% use them “a few times per week,” and the rest (46.2%) use them a few times per month or fewer. Most of these public lab users (90.6%) were either “somewhat” or “very” satisfied with the hours of operation. Seniors were also more likely than those in other classes to use public computer labs on a daily basis.

Finally, all respondents were asked how many years they have been using computers. Answers ranged from a minimum of “less than one year” to 22 years, with a mean of 7.4 and a median of 7 years.

- Julie Fishtein