Factors Affecting Student's Intention to Choose IT Program

Abstract

This paper proposes a two-fold study: (1) to find the factors affecting attitude of Thai students for choosing Information Technology (IT) program and (2) to investigate the existence of gender gap in behavioral intention. The study is based on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) as a theoretical framework. The factors that may affect students’ behavioral intention to choose IT program are categorized into two dimensions: attitudes toward choosing IT program and subjective norm. The web-based questionnaire is employed to collect data from a sample of 67 local Thai Grade 12 students of both genders who have intention to study in IT undergraduate program at School of Information Technology (SIT), King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT). The result of statistical analysis shows that TRA is effective for explaining the behavioral intention. Male and female students hold the same set of attitudinal attributes when deciding to enter IT program, hence, an IT school shall implement common strategies to grasp intention from both genders. The most effective strategy to gain students intention is to build up the reputation of IT program.