Manju Ahuja
ABSTRACT
This research-in-progress paper reports on a National Science Foundation funded project aimed at examining ways to engage women and girls in courses of study that will qualify and motivate them for information technology (IT)-related careers. This Information Technology Work Force (ITWF) award provides support to investigate 15 tertiary education programs in information systems, information science, instructional systems technology, and informatics, with computer science programs as a baseline comparison, in five major IT degree-granting institutions. The purpose of the study is to systematically investigate the contribution of organizational culture to student experiences and outcomes, determining factors that favor female success over time.The programs are hypothesized to be differentially responsive to female students due to differences in academic culture, operationalized in terms of the availability of mentorship, role models, peer support networks, grant programs, and other resources at the departmental, university, and disciplinary levels. These measures of organizational culture will be correlated with measures of student outcomes and self-reports of student experiences. Data about students' experiences will be collected through a web-based survey of a sample of 5,000 students, followed by three face-to-face interviews with an estimated 155 students, over-sampling for females, over a two-year period. In addition, faculty, administrators and staff in the study programs will be interviewed by telephone and in person. Student survey data will be collected by April 2004 and analyzed by May 2004.At the conference, we will report preliminary findings based on analysis of data collected from our pilot site (Indiana University).The project will identify encouraging and discouraging factors, and produce comparative statistics, that can be used as a baseline in future research on IT education and gender. Findings can be used to inform programmatic recommendations aimed at moving more women into the IT pipeline through a diverse range of educational programs. To the extent that new IT paradigms such as are taught in schools of information, informatics, education, and business help to create those cultural associations, they can contribute to reducing the persistent gender segregation in academic IT-related programs and thus IT employment.
- Ahuja, M., (2002) "Information Technology and the Gender Factor", European Journal of Information Systems, 11, 1, pp. 20--34.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Clarke, S. (1992). Strategies for involving girls in computer science. In C. Martin & E. Murchie-Beyma (Eds.), Search for Gender Free Paradigms for Computer Science Education (pp.71--86). Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.Google Scholar
- Cohoon, J.M. (2001) Toward improving female retention in the computer science major. Communications of the ACM. 44(5), 109--114. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Frenkel, K.A. (1990). Women and computing. Communications of the ACM 33(11), 33--46. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Klawe, M. & Leveson, N. (1995). Women in computing: Where are we now? Communications of the ACM 38(1), 29--35. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Margolis, J. & Fisher, A. (2002). Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
- National Council for Research on Women (2001). Balancing the Equation: Where Are Women & Girls In Science, Engineering & Technology? New York: NCRW.Google Scholar
- National Science Foundation (2000). Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2000. http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/sis/nsf00327/pdfstart.htmGoogle Scholar
- Ray, C. M., C. Sormunen, & T. M. Harris (1999). Men's and women's attitudes toward computer technology: A comparison. Office Systems Research Journal 17(1), Spring. http://www.nyu.edu/education/alt/beprogram/osrajournal/ray.PDFGoogle Scholar
- Science. (1992). Women in science. 255(1050), 1365--1376.Google Scholar
- Spertus, E. (1991). "Why are there so few female computerscientists?" ftp://ftp.ai.mit.edu/people/ellens/Google Scholar
- 2001-2002 Taulbee Survey (2003). Computing Research News. 15, 2, pp. 6--13.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Exploring antecedents of gender equitable outcomes in IT higher education
Recommendations
Gender Equity in Computing: International Faculty Perceptions and Current Practices
ITiCSE '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ITiCSE Working Group ReportsIn many countries serious effort has been put into developing and running programs that encourage girls to enjoy learning programming. At school level, many girls have done very well in these experiences, but despite their confidence and enthusiasm for ...
A program to increase female engineering and science enrollments through NSF STEM scholarships
FIE '12: Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)This paper describes a scholarship and student mentoring program created to increase female enrollment and graduates in our Schools of Engineering and Science. This program was developed and administered jointly by both of the schools, and the ...
Exploring factors that influence computer science introductory course students to persist in the major
SIGCSE '09: Proceedings of the 40th ACM technical symposium on Computer science educationThis paper describes an exploratory study to identify which environmental and student factors best predict intention to persist in the computer science major. The findings can be used to make decisions about initiatives for increasing retention. Eight ...
Comments