A Domain Specific Innovativeness Perspective Of Student Enrollment In New Major Offerings

Abstract

Colleges and universities have embraced educational innovation as a way to meet needs of students and provide flexibility in delivery of course content. Innovation includes launching new majors such as Digital Media Arts and Accounting Information Systems. Successful new majors must attract students to sustain the major and build a critical mass of students. Schools have often spent little time and effort on marketing new majors and targeting prospective students for the new major. It would be useful for schools to identify prospective students who are innovators, and more likely to enroll in new majors.  Prior research on adoption of educational innovations has focused on the educators accepting and implementing new approaches. There is a paucity of research on students’ adoption of educational innovations.  This study addresses this gap in the research 

Diffusion of Innovation research has identified that personal characteristics of the adopter influence the likelihood of if and when an individual will adopt an innovation. Goldsmith and Hofacker (1991) found that domain specific innovativeness (DSI) is a useful predictor for consumers purchasing new products. This study extends the application of the DSI scale to the student decision of whether to enroll or not to enroll in a new major. 

Two hundred and fifty-nine undergraduate business students enrolled in new and old majors were sampled in the study. Students completed a survey that included Goldsmith and Hofacker’s (1991) six item DSI scale adapted to the domain of new majors. Exploratory factor analysis identified that three of the six DSI items constituted a unidimensional scale which is consistent with Grewal, et. al (2000). The resulting scale demonstrated strong psychometric properties suggesting that the three item scale is well suited for measuring student innovativeness.  Study results suggest higher levels of DSI, math SAT score, and high school average for students selecting a new major.  Gender and verbal SAT scores do not differ significantly between new majors and old majors. The results of the study are useful to administrators interested in launching a new major and to academic researchers’ in understanding innovativeness in the context of students’ course of study decisions.