HCBE Faculty Presentations
Event Location / Date(s)
52nd Annual IACIS International Conference/Myrtle Beach, SC
Event Name / Location
2012 IACIS Conference Proceedings
Presentation Date
2012
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
ORCID ID
Yuliya Yurova0000-0003-4524-3471
Description
Proposed/completed study The mission of the School of Information Technology at Macon State College is to educate students in information technology in ways that lead to fulfilling managerial careers and enhance the economic vitality of Central Georgia. To accomplish the mission, the School of Information Technology is preparing a Master’s degree program that can be offered within the next few years. To use limited resources efficiently, the school needs to focus on a few concentrations that are in demand by students and meet the workforce needs of the local area (Calhoun et al. 2008). Therefore, two IT concentrations were chosen (IT Security and Health IT) considering various resources. A survey was conducted to determine students’ intent to pursue the proposed program. This study can provide meaningful implications to the educators in IS and IT areas, especially those who plan to prepare IT advanced degree programs. Therefore, it could be beneficial to IACIS conference participants. The basis of the study A set of survey questions was sent to approximately 5,600 Macon State College students. This population included students from Macon State’s five academic schools (Information Technology, Nursing and Health Sciences, Education, Arts and Sciences, and Business) and a sample of 415 usable responses was collected through SurveyMonkey.com. The collected data was coded using proper numbers for dependent and independent variables and analyzed using a simple descriptive statistical analysis and a logistic regression, which is good for predicting a dependent variable that has two values such as “yes” and “no” based on one or more predictor variables (Menard 2002). The simple descriptive statistics are expected to show how many students want to pursue a Master’s degree at Macon State College and how many among them are interested in the IT Master’s degree and the two specified concentrations. The logistic regression analysis is expected to show the dominant factors of pursuing the IT Master’s degree and each concentration. Implications/Conclusions The descriptive statistics show that 79% of responses want to pursue a Master’s program at Macon State College and 42% of the respondents who want to pursue a Master’s degree are interested in the IT Master’s degree. 88% of the respondents who want to pursue the IT Master’s degree want to major in the IT Security concentration. The logistic regression analysis shows that the affiliation with the School of IT is the dominant factor that drives students toward the IT Master’s program. In particular, the Master’s degree in IT Security concentration is the preferred choice of the undergraduate students majoring in Information Assurance and Security and Network Technologies and Administration (undergraduate concentrations currently being offered by the School of IT). The Health IT concentration is selected by IT Management students as well as by students from the School of Nursing and Health Sciences. The students from the School of Education are not interested in any of the concentrations in the IT Master’s program. Additionally, gender was found to have a significant effect on the selection of a concentration in an IT Master’s program. Female students chose predominantly Health IT and male students prefer IT Security.
First Page
35
Last Page
34
NSUWorks Citation
Kwak, Myungjae; Yurov, Kirill; Floyd, Kevin; Rigole, Neil; and Yurova, Yuliya V., "A Survey of the Intention to Pursue Graduate Studies in Information Technology" (2012). HCBE Faculty Presentations. 776.
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hcbe_facpres/776