Insight #3: Majoring in Information Technology
This blog article is intended to provide some insight on short items gained from the current research. If you want to read an introduction and background of this research project, please click here.
Intent to Major in IT -- A Four Year Trend Analysis
Objective The survey data analyzed the students' perception of the intent to major in information technology. Two survey questions were asked to gain the intent to major construct using a Likert Scale (1-7).
These questions are different than the questions in the previous insights to focus on the likelihood of selecting IT as a major as a college student (IM). In order to gain an accurate indication of their inclination to major in IT, two questions were designed and placed at different points in the survey. The average of the two responses were analyzed below.
A Bonus Insight! My research also analyzed the students' perception of the difficulty of the major (DM); possibly an important factor to their overall perception from two questions placed at different points in the survey (again, an average of the two responses)..
Question Text
IM: I intend to major in information technology.
DM: Majoring in information technology will require more study time.
Response Analysis Responses from first-year college students in Fall 2016 and 2020 were identified consisting of 293 responses.
Statistical Analysis For those that love statistics, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was completed with the following results:
The results of the statistical analysis show that there are significant differences between the means of the two survey years (2016 vs. 2020) (.012, p<.05) for the either question. The various group means have a large enough variance to conclude there are significant differences for intent to major (IM). However, the difficulty of major perception did not show any significant differences (.283, p>.05).
What Does This Mean? The perceptions of an information technology major has changed enough over the four-year period to require further review of the two individual means. The mean of IM dropped from 2.63 to 2.25; moving more toward "disagree" with the question above. From the ANOVA results, it is reasonable to say that the test is 98% conclusive.
To the question for difficulty of the major (DM), there are no significant differences in the means over the four-year period; depicting that the change was meaningless from a statistical standpoint. Therefore, the perception decrease (4.64 to 4.52) in four years requires no further analysis. However, it is trending more toward neither agree or disagree (a survey response of 4).
Final Thoughts Over the last four years, first-year students have reduced their interest to select technology as a major. For higher educational institutions, it could mean fewer students graduating with a technology education. For businesses, the reduction of IT graduates will tighten the applicant market. If this occurs, it will only magnify the importance of recruiting and outreach activities and associated strategies for human resources personnel.
The perceived difficulty of the major probably has some effect on the attitude of selecting IT as a career. Hmmmm (deep thinking now), but then what are the other factors?
In a recent WSJ article, Cathleen Southwick (CIO at Pure Storage) said ...
"IT leaders will need to play a pivotal role in recruiting and retaining talent in the competitive job market, she said. “We’re going to have to keep reinventing how, where and what we offer to employees, whether it’s our benefits, flexibility or locations.”
What are the target areas that require a new strategy at the K-12 or higher education levels. Through this third insight, I have discussed four perceptional constructions. This research project has eight constructs to analyze ! Now that sounds like a journal paper.
The next sequel teaser ... Intent to major and difficulty by gender!
I have these results ... what do you think they will be?