Information Systems and Technology Education: Perspectives from USA Community Colleges

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at least 57 percent of job openings in the United States (US) in 2006-2016 will require some post secondary education, jobs for community college graduates are expected to grow at twice the national average and the highest paying jobs will be in the Information Technology (IT) sector. Yet studies of preparation of IT professionals typically explore four-year institutions rather than community colleges. Given the percentage of the USA population that attends community college, exploring information systems and technology education in community colleges and students’ readiness for the IT workforce are important subjects to investigate. In this paper, community college students’ perceptions are examined to identify how students perceive the importance of specific IT skills, how confident students are about their ability to learn and engage with the specific IT skills, and how the gender of respondents affect gender stereotyping of these IT skills.