Using Indices of Student Satisfaction to Assess an MIS Program

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a methodology by which Management Information Systems (MIS) alumni evaluate the content of courses and their satisfaction with an entire MIS program. The approach can be used to assess the relevancy of an MIS curriculum. By way of clarification, a Management Information Systems (MIS) program prepares its graduates to be effective in the tasks necessary to design, program and implement systems that will provide management with timely, accurate and useful information for decision making. This is in contrast to Computer Science (CS) programs that prepare their graduates to be knowledgeable in the technical aspects of computer hardware and operating systems software. This study first determines if there are any differences in the evaluations of the content of required MIS courses by alumni based upon whether the graduate was using their first year on the job or one’s current position as a frame of reference. Next, a factor analysis is performed, using the scores earned by specific courses, to reduce the content value of specific courses into specific factors, thus simplifying understanding of the type of learning that is taking place. A factor analysis is performed both for course content scores during one’s first year on the job and, again, in one’s current position. Using a global measure of satisfaction with the entire MIS program, the course content factor scores are then regressed against a student’s satisfaction with the entire MIS program. This regression analysis is performed, once again, for both one’s first year on the job and in one’s current position. The implications for evaluating the effectiveness of an MIS curriculum are presented and discussed.