Coping Strategies and Emotional Intelligence: New Perspectives on Computing Students

Recruiting and retaining students into computing curricula, computer science, information systems, and information technology, is becoming more of a challenge. In the last four years, enrollments have declined substantially. Even after enrolling into computing disciplines, evidence suggests students increasingly are migrating out of these programs. This paper reports results from the first phase of a longitudinal study that seeks to enhance the retention of students in the IT workplace and professorate. One of the study’s premises is that, beyond academic preparation, different individuals may be disproportionately attracted to different curricula delivery methods. To test this assumption, we measured the coping strategies and emotional intelligence of IT students and tested whether they predicted academic success. Only emotional intelligence was related to academic success. Second, we compared IT and non-IT majors on those dimensions. There were no significant differences. We discuss implications for research and practice