A Tale Of Two Majors: When Information Technology Is Embedded Within A Department Of Computer Science

Keywords

Data analytics; Graduation rates; Information Technology; Retention; Social comparisons; Student Success; Student transitions

Abstract

Student success is one of the most widely discussed topics in the higher education literature. One understudied factor that may have a significant impact on student success is the effect of co-locating two different undergraduate programs – specifically, Computer Science (CS) and Information Technology (IT) – in the same department. In this paper, we examine student data from the IT and CS undergraduate programs at a large, public university to identify and compare the paths of IT and CS students, who started the program in Fall 2008 and dropped out, changed their major, or successfully completed the program by Summer 2013. We also conducted an open-ended survey of 165 IT and CS students to determine their perceptions of the two programs. Our results suggest a tiered relationship between the two programs, where CS appears to be a more volatile and rigorous of a major in terms of student pathways and perceptions. We conclude that social comparisons that occur due to the way these programs were established at the target university contribute to this imbalance. Based on our analyses, we propose measures to mitigate negative social comparisons between the two programs and make IT a standalone program contributing to student success.

Publication Date

9-14-2018

Publication Title

SIGITE 2018 - Proceedings of the 19th Annual SIG Conference on Information Technology Education

Number of Pages

32-37

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1145/3241815.3241868

Socpus ID

85058173049 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85058173049

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