Is information technology general education effective for non-engineering major students?: An exploratory study on ethnically Chinese classrooms

The role of computer and information literacy in the contemporary digital society is as important as language proficiency. This is widely exemplified in the graduate requirements in many tertiary institutions: students must pass the compulsory IT subject(s), often as a mandatory General Education (GE) course, before graduation irrespective of majors. Challenges arise to the computer science faculty as students are from different academic backgrounds with diversified level of IT background, and are often less motivated than taking a course in the major program. In this paper, we attempt to explore the reasons fostering students to devote efforts (i.e., persistence) in the GE IT course in tradition confucian examination-orientated educational settings. Student behavior and perceptions in two major groups of ethnically Chinese students (Mainland China and Hong Kong) are analyzed, revealing that mastery is the main reason leading to persistence in the mandatory IT course. Theoretically, we address the paucity on GE IT related research on ethnically Chinese students through validation and comparison of findings from the literature, leading to new directions of research. Practically, we generalize our experience from practitioner´s view and propose different suggestions to effectively deliver GE IT courses under the confucian culture.