POWRE; Digital Divide, IT Workforce, and High School Quality

University Of Illinois At Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The new digital economy has been experiencing a surge in demand for workers in the area of information technology (IT). Individuals with IT education are rewarded with high salaries. The proposed study will examine the 'digital divide' in terms of information technology (IT) education in college using the University of Illinois undergraduate student data and the logit regression technique. It will show the extent to which a college student's participation in IT education is affected by the student's gender and race, controlling for other factors including his or her math ACT score and high school. Using the Illinois Goal Assessment Program (IGAP) high schools data and census data, the study will go on to examine how the distribution of the ACT scores of students in a high school is influenced by the high school characteristics and the students' socioeconomic backgrounds. High school characteristics encompass teacher training/qualification, class size, expenditures per students, ethnic composition of students, computer ownership, and Internet accessibility. Socioeconomic variables are family income, education level of the parents, and household type. The empirical findings of the proposed should expand significantly those in the existing literature. The study examines a different aspect of the 'digital divide'. It couches the 'divide' in terms of IT education instead of simply access to technology. Also, it uses a different regression technique, namely the quantile regression, instead of the ordinary regression technique. This different approach can reveal impacts of contributing factors to the 'divide", which ordinary regression technique will overlook. These results will identify factors that enable access, participation, and diversity in IT education in college. Such knowledge provides empirical basis for implementation of policies to narrow the "digital divide' by both high school and university administrators.