Assessing MIS Program Admission Criteria
Craig K. Tyran, J. Christopher Sandvig and Steven C. Ross
This study assessed program entrance criteria and predictors of student success for upper-division undergraduate university courses in MIS (Management Information Systems) and business. The research setting was a MIS concentration program located within an AACSB-accredited College of Business and Economics. A hierarchical regression analysis found that grades in the seven business foundation courses required for admission to the College (e.g., accounting, economics, and statistics) were strong predictors of success for the general business core courses, but were generally not as effective for predicting performance in the MIS core courses. The single best predictor of success for the MIS core courses was the grade received in the Principles of MIS course, which is a prerequisite for students concentrating in MIS. The study offers insights into the relative predictive power of admission criteria for MIS students in a business college and discusses alternatives for improving MIS admission criteria.
Keywords:IS Education, IS Curriculum, Academic Entrance Criteria
Craig K. Tyran is an Associate Professor in the Department of Decision Sciences at Western Washington University. He received his PhD from the University of Arizona in Management Information Systems, his MBA from UCLA, and his undergraduate and master's degrees in engineering from Stanford University. Dr. Tyran conducts research in the areas of technology support for collaboration and learning. His work has been published in MIS Quarterly, the Journal of Management Information Systems, the Communications of the ACM, and a variety of other publication outlets. In addition, he has presented his research at numerous national and international conferences.
J. Christopher Sandvig is an Associate Professor in the Department of Decision Sciences at Western Washington University. Dr. Sandvig's teaching and research interests include server-side programming, web usability, information seeking behavior, and MIS curriculum design. He has authored and co-authored over a dozen peer-reviewed journal articles.
Steven C. Rossis a Professor in the Department of Decision Sciences at Western Washington University. He received MS and PhD degrees in business from The University of Utah, and a BS in history from Oregon State University. Prior to joining Western Washington University, he was a faculty member at Marquette University and Montana State University. He is the author or coauthor of 35 books and 25 published articles. His publications have appeared in Journal of Informatics Education Research, Journal of Cases on Information Technology, Communications of the AIS, Journal of Applied Business Research, and Journal of Computer Information Systems, among others. His teaching and research interests include systems development, database management, and intranets.
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