Does gender role influence the pattern of internet and computer use among physiotherapy undergraduates?

Gender roles affect some components of life and whether this difference persist in using advanced technologies such as computers and internet is unclear. Aim of this study was to compare the computer and internet using patterns among male and female physiotherapy undergraduates.

 

Methods: Out of the registered physiotherapy undergraduates, 92 participated in the study with a response rate of 80%. A pre-tested self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from students in first to final academic years. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20.

 

Results: Out of participants, 37% (n=34) were males and age ranged from 19 to 26 years. Majority of 95.7% (n=88) participants owns a computer and 64.1% (n=59) mainly use it for entertainment. Females tend to seek more formal learning computer classes compared to males. Majority of study participants spend more than 8 hours per week to go online and values were 29.4% (n=10) for males and 25.9% (n=15) for females.

 

Conclusion: A significant relationship was seen between gender and formal learning classes for computers. Usage time and purposes did not show any difference among genders. Internet was used mainly for entertainment and secondly for social communication in both genders.