I was a participate in one of Dr. Ariely studies on this. See:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/05/05/pm-will-posting-calorie-labels-help-ariely-q/
I agree that students computing skills are often overestimated. Years ago I was in an intro programming course that was rather held back because half the class didn't know how to use a unix text editor. Most faculty don't want to give course credit for learning to use vi or emacs. Perhaps there should be remedial noncredit courses in CS like there are currently for mathematics ?
I was a participate in one of Dr. Ariely studies on this. See:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/05/05/pm-will-posting-calorie-labels-help-ariely-q/