Competitiveness of the Information Systems Major: An Analytic Hierarchy Process, The

Journal of Information Systems Education, Summer 2006 by Lee, Younghwa, Lee, Sang Jun

ABSTRACT

A sharp reduction in student enrollment in the information systems major has become an urgent issue in the information systems (IS) community. This study investigates the factors affecting the selection of major by business students, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the IS major with respect to those factors, and the short-term and long-term strategy to counteract this phenomenon. A questionnaire-based field survey of 246 students at twelve universities in the United States was conducted. The data was analyzed using an analytic hierarchy process. The results demonstrate that the IS major retains its share of strength in factors like personal interest, aptitude, starting salary, and job flexibility. However, the study also shows that factors like most difficult major, hard to find jobs, insufficient promotional efforts, and indifference to institutional reputation are of concern and these issues need further addressing for improving the competitiveness of the IS major. Referent group also had pessimistic opinions in majoring the IS. The short-term and long-term suggestions to enhance the competitiveness of the IS major are provided.

Keywords: IS Major, Analytic Hierarchy Process, IS Major Competitiveness, Major Selection

1. INTRODUCTION

A sharp reduction in student enrollment in the Information Systems (IS) major1 has become a critical issue in the IS community. Active discussions on the community websites (e.g., Nemati, 2004) workshops, panel (Kaiser et al., 2004) and new IS curriculum development meetings (Gorgone et al., 2003; Gorgone et al., 2005) have been held to identify the problems and find the solutions; however, IS departments in the United States have still experienced 25 to 75 percent enrollment reduction in recent years (George et al., 2004). This reduction seems to support Nicholas Carr's pessimistic view about the value of IT discussed in his Harvard Business Review article entitled 'IT Doesn't Matter' (Carr, 2003). Several suppositions have been made about the IS enrollment drop including the shrinkage of the IS job market caused by the recent dot.com failures and bubbles of IT industry (e.g., George et al., 2004), but an empirical study has yet to be conducted. Based on college major selection literature in education and educational psychology, this study seeks to investigate (1) the factors affecting major selection of college of business students, (2) the relative strengths and weaknesses of the IS major over other business majors with respect to those factors, and (3) the short-term and long-term strategy to counteract this phenomenon. This study first identifies four major selection factors including personal preference, other's preference, preference toward an institution, and career preference. Ten sub-factors are identified in an extensive literature review and by conducting interviews. Then by applying an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, this study investigates the relative importance of each factor and ranks alternative majors. It provides the detailed information of the strengths and weaknesses of IS major. AHP is a multi-criteria decisionmaking method that allows decision makers to model a complex problem in a hierarchical structure consisting of goals, objectives, sub-objectives, and alternatives (Saaty, 1980). Based on pairwise comparison judgments, AHP integrates both criteria importance and alternative preference measures into a single overall score for ranking decision. AHP has been applied successfully to resolve a variety of problems and more than 1000 articles have published in the past decades (Forman and Gass, 2001). The findings of this study are expected to provide a better understanding of IS major selection, which may help IS departments to develop a plan for coping with the current decline in enrollment and enhance the IS major's competitiveness.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

The selection of a major by college students has been one of the critical issues receiving the interest of educators, psychologist, counselors, and college administrators. The number of students selecting a major is important because of academic planning needs and has major implications for public policies concerning resource allocation in higher education" (Leppel et al., 2001, p.374). Many studies have been conducted to determine the factors affecting major selection. The factors can be classified into three streams of research.

First, based on Holland's theory of vocational choice (1997), researchers have investigated the relationship between personality (traits) orientation and major selection (Leppel, 2001; Noel et al., 2003). Their major interest is to identify the personality factors (traits) characterizing each major and to deliver useful information to students and counseling services. Critical to increasing student satisfaction, is the fit between personality orientation and selected major. "Fit" also influences the student's intention to persist thereby resulting in higher graduation rate, and career success (Leppel, 2001). For example, Noel (2003) identified that three business majors (accounting, IS, and finance) were significantly different with respect to personality traits and personal self-monitoring. For example, accounting students were more reserved, prone to use concrete and focused thinking, affected by feelings, restrained, persistent, timid, practical, and tense in their personal interaction. Meanwhile, IS students can be characterized as easygoing, creative, enthusiastic, uninhibited, venturesome, and imaginative and are more likely to disregard rules and act expediently. Noel et al. recommended that each department should consider these traits in designing lectures, communicating with students, and developing advertisement materials (e.g. pamphlets, websites, or letters) for student recruitment. Wikoff and Kafka (1978) investigated the relationship between the choice of college major and Sixteen Personality Factors. They found that for male students, superego strength, self-sufficiency, imaginativeness, and forthrightness significantly influence the Social Science major, while intelligence, radicalism, self-concept control are important for deciding on an English major.