Once a student gets off track with computers, the counselors say, problems can snowball. You think other people have this extra edge and you don't, and then it becomes this suffocating feeling. What's more, she says, some students might avoid signing up for majors that require heavy computing, even though they might otherwise enjoy or excel in those subjects. Students who worry about computers can benefit from the same kinds of help the university offers to students with math anxiety, the counselors say. Florida's counseling center holds group interventions where students who are having problems with math meet and discuss their feelings and experiences.
Participants meet for several weeks and follow up with counselors later.
Before they can consider still other new ways of helping students, they say, they need to find out more about the problem. Most research in the field was done in the 1980s, when personal computers were introduced, says Mr. Delgado-Romero. He and Ms. Probert hope to conduct surveys on the campus to see how many students may be prone to computer anxiety, and what can be done for them. But it's still early in the year and, as with math, problems are more likely to surface as final projects and exams grow nearer, they say.