Abstract: It is of national importance to increase the number of college students pursuing degrees in information systems/information technology (IT/IS) subjects. The primary focus at many institutions is renovating or enhancing existing IT/IS programs and the target audience is the students who have selected to major in IT/IS subjects. This paper looks at general education students and how exposure to mobile app development may change their attitudes toward IT/IS and entice them into pursuing a technology major or minor. The research setting is a liberal arts university with a large female population and a diverse ethnic basis. The authors develop a new pedagogical strategy, teaching students to develop mobile apps using an easy-to-use tool, with the objective of transforming students from technology consumers to technology creators and increasing the number who choose technology as a career path. Techniques for the evaluation of the project outcomes are also discussed.

Keywords: computational thinking, general education, mobile apps, technology consumer, technology creator

Download this article: ISEDJ - V11 N1 Page 25.pdf

Recommended Citation: Liu, X., Murphy, D. (2013). Using Mobile Apps to Entice General Education Students into Technology Fields. Information Systems Education Journal, 11(1) pp 25-32. http://isedj.org/2013-11/ ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2012)