Researching tax using technology : the perspective of the female student

The study of tax has rapidly progressed from being based in textbooks and hard-copy loose leaf sources to being an activity that is more usually conducted in front of a computer. In an effort to make the taxation laws more accessible the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has put all legislation and a raft of additional interpretative materials on their website. While this makes the material available for public use, the site is necessarily complex and can be difficult to use. In an effort to encourage students to use the ATO website the author has developed a CD-ROM, in conjunction with the Division of Teaching and Learning Services Multimedia Design Centre, to illustrate the use of some of the more important areas of the site. In order to determine whether the use of the CD-ROM is assisting the students to navigate the ATO site a survey has been conducted. This paper will focus on the perspective of the female tax student and explore the level of acceptance of technology generally to determine the relationship this has to the level of use of computer-based tax resources.