Promoting Information Systems Major to Undergraduate Students: A Comprehensive Investigation

1. INTRODUCTION In today's competitive and enrollment-driven higher education environment, universities have increased emphasis on student recruitment and retention. It becomes increasingly important for educators to understand the factors that cause students to select one major over another and develop corresponding strategies to attract students and increase enrollment and retention. This is true particularly in the Information Systems (IS) field, which experienced a 75% decline in enrollments in less than a decade (Rouibah, 2012; Saunders and Lockridge, 2011). This trend is peculiar in light of the fact that employment opportunities for IS graduates have been quite stable and even been growing in some areas, and average salaries remained high relative to other positions as well (Frankel, 2008). A number of studies have investigated factors using various approaches including surveys (Downey et al. 2011; Hogan and Li, 2010; Kuechler et al., 2009; Walstrom et al. 2008; Zhang, 2007) and qualitative studies (Ferratt et al. 2010; Rouibah, 2012). These studies have given insights into the drivers and barriers to students' choice of IS majors. However, strategies and actions are only implied by these studies but not empirically tested. In this paper, the researchers conducted a comprehensive study that not only identified the important factors impacting student's choice of majors, but also developed a strategy aiming to promote MIS major and tested the strategy empirically. The rest of paper is organized into the following sections: section two describes related studies; section three and four describes the research framework and methodology; section five presents research findings; and section six concludes the paper and discusses implications of the study. 2. RELATED STUDIES Several previous studies have investigated the factors that influence business students' choice of college major, either in a broad context or in relation to a specific major. A classic study by Galotti and Kozberg (1987) found that in general students' choice of major was determined primarily by five factors: difficulty and appeal of the major, applicability to future career goals, reputation of the program, past experiences with the field, and the courses required for completing the major. Galotti and Kozberg's (1987) study indicated that their participants made relatively informed decisions on their major selection, and other people's opinions had little impact on those decisions. Downey et al. (2011) showed that interest in the field, job availability, and job security are common influences across all majors. "Interest" as an influencing factor to major choice has been found in other studies as well (Ferratt et al., 2010; Kuechler et al., 2009). The Staff Report No. 500 of Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Wiswall and Zafar, 2011) studied the determinants of college major choice using a unique information experiment embedded in a survey, and found that while earnings are a significant determinant of major choice, tastes are the dominant factor in the choice of field of study. Several studies focused specifically on students with business majors and even specific majors in business. Walstrom et al. (2008) found that MIS students' decisions on major were influenced primarily by information on the Web. Simons et al. (2003) found that, among accounting students, major selection was largely based on student expectations about future job opportunities, earning potential, and actual job content. Simons et al. (2003) also noted that many accounting students indicated that their college professors played a big role in their decision to select accounting as a major. Similarly, a study by Francisco et al. (2003) found that non-accounting business students chose not to major in accounting because they viewed it boring and repetitive, and they thought accountants were poorly paid. However, the study also found that these same students lacked accurate information regarding what accountants actually do. …