Chip Denman
Assistant Director for Research Programs

The Campus Assessment Working Group (http://www.umd.edu/CAWG/) surveyed 1389 respondents in the Professional Writing courses last spring as part of an ongoing effort to assess student experience at the university. Previous surveys have shown that the Professional Writing courses are a fairly representative sample of upper-class students, roughly three-quarters Juniors and one-quarter Seniors. The University of Maryland Student Survey (UMSS) asked a variety of questions relating to instruction, advising, campus services, learning outcomes, and information technology issues. Initial results on learning outcomes were presented at a pubic forum on October 6. The results here summarize a portion of the responses relating to computer ownership and use. Additional reports are currently in preparation.

It was no surprise that students consider IT skills important.

Eight-six percent of these Juniors and Seniors reported that they currently owned a computer.

Percent owning a computer

Desktop	Laptop	Either
74	29	86

Men and women showed no differences in the proportion owning computers.

Percent owning a computer by Sex

Female	Male
87	87

Computer ownership did differ among racial/ethnic groups.
Percent owning a computer by Race/Ethnic Group

Asian	Black/African American	Hispanic	White
95	79	87	87

(NOTE: other groups too few in number for reliable estimates)

Students were asked a series of questions about the difficulty of having money to cover various expenses such as tuition and living expenses. These responses were used to create a financial difficulty index. Those who reported more difficulty had a lower rate of computer ownership, but these differences were not large.

Percent owning a computer by Financial Difficulty:

1st quartile (least difficulty)	2nd quartile	3rd quartile	4th quartile (most difficulty)
89	89	85	86

The pattern of ownership in the racial/ethnic groups was similar, regardless of degree of financial difficulty.

Percent owning a computer	Among those with least financial difficulty	Among those with most financial difficulty
Asian	97	91
Black/African American	82	75
Hispanic	86	90
White	90	87

Students reported that they used computers in a variety of places in addition to where they live.

Students were asked 28 questions regarding instructors in their major courses. These same items were asked in a similar survey two years previous. Responses for all items showed little change from 1998 to 2000, with the exception of the two IT-related items, which showed a strong increase in IT use.

Twenty-three learning outcomes and abilities were self-assessed in terms of level of ability at the beginning of time at UM, at the present time, and the degree to which UM directly affected those abilities. The ability to acquire IT skills was ranked 4^th highest out of 23 in terms of the percentage of students who said that UM had very much affected them. These data all speak to the fact that students consider IT to be a high priority — no surprise there. But data such as these allow us to plan for the future, informed by the degree and extent of student perceptions. In the Information Age, we can afford no less.