Why do students choose to study Information and Communications Technology?

Abstract It is a worldwide problem that although many students are highly interested in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), they do not study it at the higher education level, or if they do then many of them eventually dropout. We studied the reasons student candidates choose to study ICT, in order to gather data that can be used for improving future ICT recruitment and retention. During the admissions procedure to three higher education institutions in Estonia, 1,464 student candidates were asked what reasons influenced them to apply to Informatics or Information Technology. On average, 2.6 candidates competed per available position at the institutions. Qualitative content analysis was used to code the candidates' open-ended answers and resulted inductively in 14 distinguishable categories. The most frequent reasons for studying ICT were general interest in ICT, previous experience in the field, need for personal professional development, and importance of the field in the future. Interestingly, only a few candidates expressed as a reason the importance of high salaries. Chi-square analysis showed that candidates were accepted with higher probability if they found ICT to be suitable for them, or expressed good opportunities in the labour market. These results are useful for planning effective admission procedures to recruit ICT students