The Impact of IQ+EQ+CQ Integration on Student Productivity in Web Design and Development

1. INTRODUCTION With the advancement of the Internet and Web technologies, the global communication and online collaboration become more convenient and less expensive than ever before. This advancement creates an opportunity for companies to maximize their shareholder value by minimizing costs through outsourcing knowledge-based jobs such as online technical support and software programming to overseas at lower prices, which was not possible before the Internet era. A Business Week special report indicated that outsourcing is transforming whole industries and changing the way we work (Engardio, 2006). Coupled with the offshore outsourcing opportunity for U.S. companies, comes the threat of losing jobs to the U.S. information technology (IT) professionals. The U.S. IT workers now face a situation similar to that in the manufacturing industries, which lost jobs over the past several decades, as companies either improved automation or moved manufacturing plants overseas for cheap labor. A Gartner study predicted that as many as 50% of the IT operational jobs in the U.S. could disappear over the next two decades because of advanced technologies and offshore outsourcing (Thibodeau, 2004). As the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, from 2000 to 2006, the number of jobs as computer programmers declined by 25.4% and that of data entry clerk went down by 35.5% due to offshore outsourcing, which were ranked at the top of America's most vulnerable jobs list (Blinder, 2007). However, demands for innovative employees with IT architecture skills as well as project management and communication skills are growing among U.S. companies. It is not just about math and science anymore; it's about creativity, imagination, and above all, innovation (Nussbaum, 2005). Many technology executives want to hire entry-level IT employees who have current technical skills, communicate well, think critically and creatively, and can work in a multicultural world (Gruman, 2004; Hamm, 2007; Overby, 2003; Thibodeau, 2004). IT executives and educators are warning that the U.S. isn't producing IT experts in quantity and quality that it needs to remain the leader of the global IT market (Verton, 2004). At the 2007 Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, a group of Gartner analysts put out the call for IT heroes who are willing to reject mediocrity and embrace innovation. These analysts pointed out that innovation is in short supply inside corporate IT organizations and most IT organizations could not deliver new value because their DNA is fundamentally about control (Claburn, 2007). Similarly, Professor Leah Jamieson, Purdue University's dean of engineering and the 2007 president of IEEE, stated at the 2008 Fortune Brainstorm: Tech conference, "If we're going to foster this age of innovation, we need to do three things: Attract not only the best and the brightest, but the most creative to engineering. Ensure that this creativity is welcome in the universities. And provide a home for this creativity in the technology industry. " (Fortune Live Media, 2008, p. S6) To meet the new demand from the U.S. IT industry, IT educational programs, which include computer science, information systems, and information technology programs, require students to take additional courses such as project management and business communication. Nevertheless, simply adding these courses into IT programs without requiring integrated learning activities would not effectively achieve the new program objectives (Datz, 2004; Cropley and Cropley, 2000; Zhao and Alexander, 2004). Skills and competencies in technology, innovation, management, and communication are developed from three different types of mental processes or domains: intelligence quotient (IQ), emotion quotient (EQ), and creativity quotient (CQ). While reading, understanding, reasoning, analyzing, and judging are skills and competencies belonging to the IQ domain (e.g., Eysenck, 1994; Nietzel, Berstein, and Milich, 1998; Wechsler, 1944); empathy, leadership, communication, teamwork, and management skills are within the EQ domain (e. …