Knowledge of Green Computing among University Students and Lecturers in a Malaysian Public University

This study examined the levels of green computingknowledge between students and lecturers, and between ICT andnon-ICT respondents in a public university in Malaysia. Twotypes of green computing knowledge were assessed, perceivedknowledge and objective knowledge. Perceived knowledge wasassessed through respondents’ self-rating of how much they knewabout green computing on eight Likert items, and objectiveknowledge through seventeen True-False items. The sampleconsisted of 240 respondents, comprising 180 students and 60lecturers, drawn using a purposive, random sampling. Datawere collected using a self-developed green computingquestionnaire, which was administered by hand and via e-mail.Descriptive statistics and independent-samples t-tests were usedto analyze the data. Results show that almost half of the samplereported having completely no knowledge of green computing(49.5%), while 14.6% reported having a low level of knowledge.Those reporting having high (2.6%) and quite high (9.7%) levelswere few in number. Results of the t-tests point to a nosignificancedifference between students and lecturers, but astatistically significant difference between ICT and non-ICTrespondents. The findings suggest the importance of conscioustraining in energy-efficient computing to raise students’ andlecturers’ levels of knowledge in this very important area