Factors Influencing Information Systems Students´ Intention to Promote Accessibility

Abstract

Information Systems (IS) programs have a responsibility to train future practitioners in accessibility competence. Prior research has provided valuable insights into how accessibility should be taught in IS programs. However, we still have relatively little understanding of which aspects of accessibility arouse interest in the topic among students and what factors influence their intention to promote accessibility in the future. The study aims to reveal the factors that would influence students' intention to promote accessibility in their future careers, and furthermore to propose the inclusion of those ones in the IS curricula. We employed a questionnaire and a group interview with 31 master’s-level university students in a standalone web content accessibility course. We found that the factors that most increased these students’ interest in and intention to promote accessibility were theories and practices, legislative perspective, the promotion of equality, the ‘there is still much to develop’ perspective, personal interest, and an understanding of the impact of accessibility. We show how these topics can be integrated into the IS curricula and propose accessibility as a cross-cutting theme in response to its inclusion in the IS curricula competency area of user interface design.

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