Extent of Computer Use scale

Description

This measure, (Extent of Computer Use) developed by Medcof (1996), describes the proportion of the workday spent in computer activities. It also measures the percentage of time that an employee spends engaged in computer tasks that are high, medium, and low in cognitive demands.

Reliability 

In Medcof (1996), coefficient alpha was .77.

Validity

For low cognitive demand computer-related activities (data entry, data read, read and change data), extent of computer use was positively related to skill variety and autonomy measured by the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS). For high cognitive demand tasks (end user programming and professional sys­ tem use), extent of computer use was related to skill variety. For medium cognitive demand computer activities (word processing and data analysis using systems such as Lotus 1-2-3), extent of use was not related to the JDS job dimensions.

Source

Items

Extent of computer use items: The measures uses four questions:

1. On a typical working day how many hours do you spend seated at and using the computer?
2. On a typical working day, how many hours do you spend at work?

The response to the first questions is divided by the response to the second and the quotient multiplied by 100 to provide a percentage of the day at the computer.

3. On a typical working day what percentage of your work time do you spend seated at and using the computer?
4. How would you describe the degree to which you use the computer to carry out your job functions?

Responses to question 4 are obtained using a 5-point Likert-type scale where 1 = rarely and 5 = always.

The response to question 4 is multiplied by 20 and averaged with the percentages obtained from questions 1, 2, and 3.

Type of computer use items:

In a single question, respondents are given a list of various types of computers use and asked to indicate what percentage of their time spent on the com­puter they did each. The list of types of computer use is as follows: data en­ try, data read, read and change data, word processing, data analysis using systems such as Lotus 1-2-3 and D-base III, end-user programming, pro­fessional system use, and other. The percentages for the first three catego­ries (data entry, data read, read and change data) were summed to give the percentage of computer time spent at uses with low cognitive demands. The percentages for word processing and data analysis using systems such as Lotus 1-2-3 and D-base III were summed to give the percentage of com­puter time spent at uses with medium cognitive demands. The percentages for end-user programming and professional systems use were summed to give the percentage of computer time spent at uses with high cognitive demands.