About Well-considered Decisions, Favorable Alternatives and Sudden Ideas: A Qualitative Research to Identify Beliefs that Influence Women to Study Information Systems in Germany

Our research reveals motivational beliefs that influenced the decision to study information systems of female students in Germany. We apply a qualitative methodology in form of narrative interviews and interviewed 21 female students at a German university. On the basis of the theory of planned behavior, our results expose that a range of different beliefs exist which influenced the women’s decision. We are able to expand the results of previous studies to the German context regarding especially normative beliefs, alternate choices or prior experiences dealing with information technology. In addition, we also uncover a couple of new beliefs that had not been revealed before.