Combating the IS Enrollment Crisis: The Role of Effective Teachers in Introductory IS Courses

Abstract

Assigning effective teachers to introductory IS courses represents one intervention strategy that has been broadly advocated to help reverse the sharp decline in students majoring in Information Systems (IS). Using a survey of 305 students enrolled in a multiple-section introductory IS course, this study empirically confirms that students who are taught by effective teachers are more likely to be attracted to the IS discipline. Moreover, based on a robust theoretical foundation grounded in Social Cognitive Theory, the findings reveal the underlying mechanisms through which teaching effectiveness influences students' aspirations to pursue an IS degree. Specifically, teaching effectiveness bolsters students' confidence in their ability to successfully perform as IS majors (i.e., self-efficacy), raises students' expectations that valued rewards will be received by majoring in IS (i.e., outcome expectations), and helps students develop enduring interest in the IS field. In addition to teaching effectiveness, students with high self-efficacy and robust outcome expectations become more interested in IS. In turn, interest serves as the primary channel through which goals to choose the IS major develop. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Understanding the Determinants of Service Channel Preference in the Early Stages of Adoption: A Social Cognitive Perspective on Online Brokerage Services*

“…Specific to information systems, the theory has been applied to understand a variety of phenomena including end‐user training (Compeau & Higgins, 1995a; Agarwal, Sambamurthy, & Stair, 2000; Johnson & Marakas, 2000) and virtual teams (Fuller, Hardin, & Davison, 2006–7). Even though SCT has yet to be applied specifically to the psychology underlying service channel choices, the theory has been successfully leveraged in the domains of technology adoption (Compeau & Higgins, 1995b; Compeau, Higgins, & Huff, 1999; Venkatesh et al, 2003), online investor psychology (Looney et al, 2006), and the psychology fueling individual choices (Akbulut & Looney, 2007; Looney & Akbulut, 2007).…”

If We Offer it, Will They Accept? Factors Affecting Patient Use Intentions of Personal Health Records and Secure Messaging

“…SCT is a robust theory that has been successfully applied to explain phenomena across various domains including behavior towards information technology [20], organizational behavior, training and education, and the psychology underlying individual choices [19,21-25]. …”

Methodological challenges in e-skills shortage research in South Africa

“…The dynamic nature of IT makes the skills shortage difficult to address as it is never-ending. The expectation gap, that is, the mismatch or perceived lag between what is taught and what skills are needed, is in part as a result of this quite complex interaction [2,3,5,7,9,12].…”

“…The skills shortage is partially a result of ever increasing demand for knowledge workers, but is exacerbated by decreasing numbers of students enrolling for Computer Science and Information Systems courses at universities and even secondary school [4,9,14,15,21]. However, there is evidence that the number of students enrolling is now leveling off and in some cases is even rising.…”

“…• Important 'side issues' related to career choice (specifically gender [1,8,10,11] • Curricula, work readiness, relevance and responsiveness to the real world and its fast changing needs [2,4,5,12] • Effective teaching [9,14] • Big surveys -skills shortages, gaps, current job profiles, job occupancy/vacancies, numbers of enrollments and graduations. Examples are those commissioned by the Australian Government (resulting in the "Building Australian ICT skills" report published in 2006) [18], a series for the eskills council UK (in particular the "Technology Counts: IT & telecoms insights", published in 2008) [21] and The European e-Skills Forum synthesis report ("E-Skills for Europe: towards 2010 and beyond" [35].…”