However, teachers who call themselves "very experienced" or "expert" on the Macintosh system actually report
having somewhat more computer skill in general, and they are more likely to have some specific advanced competencies than teachers who call themselves "very experienced" or "expert" on Windows computers. This becomes apparent
only when one holds subject-matter "constant" because Windows-expert teachers, concentrated in the computer and business education fields, do tend to report more computer skills overall. Elementary teachers and secondary
computer or business teachers who are very experienced or expert Macintosh users report having about one-half an additional skill, making them one-fifth to one-fourth a standard deviation higher than very experienced or expert
Windows users. (See Table 19.) In contrast, among very experienced secondary academic teachers or secondary teachers in other applied fields there were no skill differences by platform. When we examine specific
computer competencies, for most of the more advanced individual computer skills, a slightly higher percentage of very experienced Macintosh-using teachers than Windows users report having that competency (See Figure 19 and Table
19). Of the 20 individual comparisons in the bottom part of Table 19, seventeen favor Macintosh users and only two favor Windows users. Still, only one difference was really sizable—the higher proportion of very
experienced Mac-using computer and/or business education teachers who report being able to develop multimedia documents (73% vs. 42%). But of the five specific skills in Table 19, only using a World Wide Web search engine
failed to show a difference favoring the experienced Mac users.
FIGURE 19: MEAN SELF-REPORTED COMPUTER SKILLS
FOR TEACHERS CONSIDERING THEMSELVES 'VERY EXPERIENCED' OR 'EXPERT'
ON A GIVEN PLATFORM, BY PLATFORM AND SUBJECT OR LEVEL TAUGHT
TABLE 19. COMPUTER SKILLS REPORTED BY TEACHERS VERY EXPERIENCED
OR EXPERT ON EACH PLATFORM, BY SUBJECT/LEVEL GROUP
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