Anatomy of an Enduring Gender Gap: The Evolution of Women’s Participation in Computer Science

How Can Universities Best Encourage Women to Major in Information Systems?

“…Their survey found that more exposure to computer courses and access to computers did not "positively improve women's decision to major in technology", but the authors did not ask about what tasks students completed in those courses. Others have posited that computer literacy courses focus on developing user-related skills rather than highlighting the malleability of software and creating developer-related skills (Ashcraft et al, 2012;Sax et al, 2017). Thus, our understanding of what women mean when they respond to the survey questions could be incomplete.…”

“…The belief that working in IS is a masculine endeavor (Cory et al, 2006;Fuller et al, 2013;Joshi & Schmidt, 2006;Lang, 2012;Sax et al, 2017;Serenko & Turel, 2016;Stout et al, 2016;Zitelny et al, 2017). These studies found that both men and women attribute such "masculine" characteristics of IS careers as isolation from other people, focus on self-promotion rather than group communion, lack of empathy, and aggression.…”

“…But while the number of women who major in STEM disciplines is trending upwards, the number of women earning degrees in technologyrelated disciplines is not. For example, while women earned about 58 percent of the STEM-related degrees in 2014, they earned only about 18 percent of the degrees awarded in computer and information sciences in 2014-down from a peak of 37 percent in the mid-1980s (National Center for Education Statistics, 2015;Sax et al, 2017;Wang, Hong, Ravitz, & Ivory, 2015).…”

“… Low self-efficacy and low confidence in their personal knowledge and abilities in technology. This point is hardly limited to IS; women display less confidence in their knowledge and abilities in general (Beyer, 2014;DuBow & James-Hawkins, 2016;Geyfman et al, 2016;Jung, Clark, Patterson, & Pence, 2017;Sax et al, 2017).  Concern about the level of difficulty and workload associated with technology-related majors (Jung et al, 2017;Pappas et al, 2016).…”

“… Lack of interest in the IS curriculum taught in primary and secondary school. Studies have found that some women find computing-related curricula to be boring, mundane, and irrelevant McLachlan et al, 2016;Sax et al, 2017). Authors posit that much of the K-12 curriculum focuses on computer literacy and developing "user" skills rather than explaining and demonstrating the ability to interact with computers as a "developer" (Ashcraft, Eger, & Friend, 2012;Fisher, Lang, Craig, & Forgasz, 2015;McLachlan et al, 2016).…”