Abstract:

Like any other technology the success of a programming language is affected by factors including its ease of use, usefulness, and availability of support. This study is motivated by the research question: what factors affect the adoption of Java programming language? The study uses the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to understand factors that affect adoption. The TAM model looks at the intention of a user to adopt a technology by studying several factors including ease of use, usefulness, attitude, job fit, complexity, and self-efficacy.
Nineteen graduate students taking Java Programming class participated in this study. A five point Likert scale with “1” strongly disagree and “5” strongly agree was used to assess whether students agree or disagree. Students indicated positively (Mean=4.16) their intention to use Java programming in the future.
We asked students’ self-efficacy when completing a Java programming task. Students indicated highest confidence in three areas including having the built-in help facilities, a lot of time to do the task, and someone show them how to do it first.
We further conducted analysis of variance using individual characteristics including age, gender, online attendance, prior computer experience, and Java related job. We did not find significant difference in these individual characteristics except in gender and Java related job.
The Java course was offered in two formats: face-to-face and synchronous online format. Students choose the format they preferred. Students’ online experience of the Java course did not have any significant difference from those that attended face-to-face. Prior studies had indicated that online learning as appropriate only for less technical courses. However, since the online class was synchronous the result confirm prior studies that synchronous online learning as appropriate for technical courses.
We found both male and female agreed Java programming is easy to use. However, there was significant difference among them in two areas: learning and using Java; females were less positive than their male counterparts. Prior study using synchronous learning is mixed on gender issues. Some studies found females less positive than males while others found females more positive than males. Further study is needed to understand the differences.
Respondents that indicated strongly agree on the question “My job type is strongly related to the training I now am taking” disagreed on two ease of use questions including “my interaction with Java programming would be clear and understandable”, Mean=2.5, and “it would be easy for me to become skilful at using Java Programming”, Mean=2.5. On both questions respondents that said their job is strongly related to the training significantly differed than those who had less agreement. This is contrary to what we expected. We expected respondents whose current job is strongly related to the training to be skillful in Java and find it to be clear and understanding. Further analysis is needed to understand the underlying reasons.
The results of this study show no difference between online and face-to-face attendees, ease of use difference was found between male and female, and respondents with Java related jobs report difficulty in being skillful in Java. These findings are important for researchers, course designers, software developers, and teachers. This study contributes to bridge this gap.

Keywords:

Java Programming, adoption, technology acceptance, training.