An investigation of communication technology usage, professional development experience, and anxiety among faculty in a community college setting

The purpose of the study was to determine if the use of communication technologies account for reported computer anxiety in a community college setting. Specifically, this study was designed to determine whether there was a difference in usage of communication technologies and levels of computer anxiety of faculty in relationship to their job responsibilities, gender, age, computer experience, and number of professional development activities. A descriptive research design was used in this study. Data analysis included the frequencies, means, standard deviations, t-test, crosstabs, chi-square, ANOVA, and ANCOVA. The results indicated that there was not a significant difference among faculty in relation to job responsibility, gender, age, computer experience, and professional development and their level of anxiety toward the use of communication technologies. The findings of this study led to the conclusions that job responsibility, gender, age, and computer experience were not a statistically significant predictor of computer anxiety. Also, professional development did not influence computer anxiety or the computer skills of the faculty. On the basis of this study, it is recommended that: (1) administrators seek input from faculty for professional development, and (2) due to emerging technologies, establish another survey for current computer skills that may cause computer anxiety