Absence of measurement tools investigating attitudes towards university study of information and communication technologies (ict) - theoretical review

Aims. The aim of this study is to identify and explore psychological measurement tools, used for measuring attitudes towards studying information and communication technology (ICT) at the university. Method. We applied a systematic review search in the relevant databases such as Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus and also in the Google scholar. Results. Number of identified measurement tools depends on the exclusion criteria based on quality such as reliability, validity, relevant theoretical background, sample size, rigour methodological apparatus and others. We were able to identify 53 relevant independent measurement tools investigating attitudes, perceptions, motivation and values of students generally towards STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) or specifically toward the study of STEM. Only 9 are specialized mostly or only in ICT and met our exclusion criteria related to quality. The reported number of measurement tools published in peer-reviewed journals could be discussed because of lack of validity, reliability or lack of relevant theoretical background. Limits. Because of the absence of these specialized tools, we could speculate if the existing tools used for STEM, should be more specified and adjusted towards ICT, or they are fully applicable to IT domain. Conclusion. Our results indicate that there is an absence of specified and psychologically validated measurement tools specialized in measuring attitudes towards ICT university study. Future research should concentrate on the development of new measurement tools, which meet the highest levels of scientific rigour. We think that most of the existing tools used in practice does not meet psychometric quality requirements and more focused tools specialized at ICT should be developed.