Cross-Cultural Comparison of Women Students' Attitudes Toward the Internet and Usage: China and the United Kingdom

Abstract

This article is an analysis and discussion of early returns of a large-scale study. It reports on women students' attitudes toward the Internet and usage in educational contexts from a cross-cultural perspective; cultural issues related to the Internet were also explored. An initial sample of 79 Chinese students was compared with a similar sample of 91 British students. These are the early returns from a much larger survey. Students were presented with a questionnaire about their use of and attitudes toward the Internet. The results clearly demonstrate the existence of cultural differences between two samples in terms of attitudes toward the Internet and usage characteristics. Chinese students reported far less experience of computers and the Internet, but were far more positive about them than the British. It was of particular interest that usage was also found to be related to certain cultural and background characteristics of students in each country. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research, and implications for education are also addressed.