Students' Perceived Technology Competency and Learning Outcome: A Comparative Study

This paper addresses students’ understanding of information technology and reports the results of a study that assessed and compared students’ perceptions to their competency levels in understanding and in the use of information technology.   The researchers conducted a study with 401 student participants that were enrolled in sixteen introductory sections of a business computer systems course. The results indicate that students’ perceptions of their knowledge were by far higher than their actual measured competency.  These results were consistent with other researchers who have demonstrated that students’ ability to use technology does not equate to proficiency or understanding of technology. There exists a very large gap between students’ perception of the general uses of technology to its actual comprehension through demonstrated application of technology.