The prevalence of computer anxiety and factors which affect it in beginning nursing students were studied. The subjects were 131 associate and 141 baccalaureate degree students enrolled in nursing programs in Southern Louisiana. Factors studied in terms of their relationship to computer anxiety were age, gender, type of nursing program attended, college GPA, ACT-Math score, mathematics anxiety, number of math classes taken in high school and college, and trait anxiety. Instruments used in the study to measure the various types of anxiety were the Computer Anxiety Index (Maurer Simonson, 1984), the trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, Jacobs, 1983), and the Mathematics Anxiety Scale (Fennema Sherman, 1976).

Findings of the study indicated that approximately 21% of the nursing students suffered from high computer anxiety. Associate and baccalaureate students were not found to differ significantly on computer anxiety and older students did not have more computer anxiety than younger students. However, the difference between male and female nursing students was marginally significant with males having less computer anxiety than females.

In this study, hands-on computer experience was shown to significantly reduce computer anxiety. In addition, hands-on experience and mathematics anxiety were much better predictors of computer anxiety than trait anxiety, grade point average, or number of math classes taken in high school and college. Approximately 15% of the nursing students were identified as having high mathematics anxiety. Students in the 23-28 year old age group with high mathematics anxiety were shown to have more computer anxiety than students in the same age group who had low mathematics anxiety. Mathematics anxiety, like computer anxiety, was not found to be significantly greater in older students than in younger students.