Analysing students' attitudes towards the learning of specialized software

Abstract

In this article the situation of teaching in engineering courses using specialized software support is evaluated and analysed.The statistics courses in engineering often come off as element of formal exposure to statistical analysis and research methods. The software support during classes intends to facilitate and reinforce learning with computational resolution of statistical specific problems. We report a research that investigates students' attitudes towards computers and their effect on statistics unit performance. The preliminary results of research using a small sample of 47 students enrolled in the experimental statistics unit of the 1st year of the master's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Minho indicate that software perceived usefulness has a positive effect on student success, although perceived ease of use and perceived self-performance do not influence.