Journal of Educational Sciences > Volume 24, No. 3, 2012

The Availability Of Basic Computer Skills among Student Teachers at King Saud University  / Riyadh at Hassan

The purpose of the study was to identify the availability of basic computer skills among college of education student-teachers. The sample of the study consisted of all student-teaches in a college of education located in the central region in Saudi Arabia. A specially designed performance assessment test was developed to assess students' skills in basic computer operations such as performing file related tasks and using computer applications, word processors more specifically. Findings of the study showed that student-teachers showed abilities in identifying functions if icons , m= 70 percent of the total score in the icons part of the test, . The results showed also high student performance with using a word processor application , m=88 % of the total word processing score, . Yet, students' performance was not high in dealing with tables within a word processing application , m=40% of the table creation score, , also student did not show high performance in file management skills , m= 22% of the file management score, . Skills in which students were weaker were: Creating folders, naming a file, formatting tables, saving documents, inserting text into a table. There were significant differences among students according to their major, owning a PC at home, and PC previous training. The study concluded by recommending increasing computer literacy courses during undergraduate studies, and the necessity of activating national initiatives aiming to introduce every house hold to PCs.