The State of Research on Girls and IT

Barker, Lecia; Aspray, William

doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262033459.003.0001

Cited by 81 publications

(92 citation statements)

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“…During science and mathematics lessons, teachers encourage boys more frequently than girls to ask or to explain mathematical problems in the classroom (American Association of University Women 1995; Jones and Wheatley 1990). In that regard, Barker and Aspray (2006) concluded that teachers' beliefs and attitudes about appropriate behaviors and roles for boys and girls combined with their attitudes and beliefs about technology can subtly steer girls to not study computers.…”

Section: Parents' and Teachers' Influence On Adolescents' Study Choicementioning

confidence: 96%

“…This finding is in line with research confirming that women are often presented in advertisements for technology products as passive and inexpert users showing how simple some device is to use. In this regard, media images more frequently depict computer programmers and developers as males, and women as users (Barker and Aspray 2006;Jenson and Brushwood Rose 2003).…”

Section: How Do Parents and Teachers Perceive Ict Professionals?mentioning

confidence: 97%

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Parental and Secondary School Teachers’ Perceptions of ICT Professionals, Gender Differences and their Role in the Choice of Studies

2011

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The influence of parents and teachers in the decisions made by adolescents regarding study options has not been widely documented in Spain. The main aim of this qualitative study consisted of analyzing the opinions of parents and secondary school teachers about their role in the different academic and professional choices boys and girls make. Seven focus groups (4 with 27 parents and 3 with 22 secondary school teachers) from 5 schools located in urban and rural areas of Catalonia (Spain) were carried out in order to explore how both groups perceive Information and Communication Technology (ICT) professionals, gender differences in study options and their own role in adolescents' choice of study options. Our findings show that parents and teachers hold stereotypes about ICTs and consider that gender does not condition adolescents' study choices. Both groups saw themselves as playing a secondary role in adolescents' academic and professional choices. Some gender differences among parents and teachers emerged regarding their perception of the ICT professionals and their own role and of others in shaping adolescents' study choices.The findings and their practical implications are discussed.

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Section: Parents' and Teachers' Influence On Adolescents' Study Choicementioning

confidence: 96%

Section: How Do Parents and Teachers Perceive Ict Professionals?mentioning

confidence: 97%

Parental and Secondary School Teachers’ Perceptions of ICT Professionals, Gender Differences and their Role in the Choice of Studies

2011

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“…Both North American (Bair and Marcus 2007;Barker and Aspray 2006;Goode et al 2006) and Spanish (Castaño 2011;Sáinz and López-Sáez 2010) research illustrates that ICT education and labor market are particularly male-dominated and very much gender-typed. In Spain, the rate of female university enrollments in computing is decreasing (around 17 %), in contrast to the moderate participation of women in telecommunications engineering (26 %) (Instituto de la Mujer [Women's Institute] 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…On the contrary, engineering was perceived as incongruent with such feminine gender roles and for this reason they appraised negatively female students enrolled in engineering. This research line is still a topic of interest in the US (Barker and Aspray 2006;Eccles 2007) and Spain (López-Sáez et al 2011), due to women being underrepresented in technological fields in these two countries. The field of Information and communications technology (ICT) is an example of this underrepresentation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Stereotypes and Attitudes Towards Information and Communication Technology Professionals in a Sample of Spanish Secondary Students

Sáinz

Meneses

López³

et al. 2014

Sex Roles

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This study examined Spanish young people's gender-stereotyped beliefs and attitudes about people working in the field of information and communications technology (ICT). For this purpose, their positive, negative, and neutral perceptions of the associated characteristics of these workers were also analyzed. Likewise, the use of masculine, feminine, or neutral expressions to describe these professionals was explored. The existence of gender differences in these aspects was also investigated. 900 students from Catalonia (51 % girls) enrolled in the last course of junior secondary education (mean of age=15 years old; S.D.=1.73) participated in a survey with close and open-ended questions. Content analysis of responses to an open-ended question indicated that the boys and girls held several stereotypical beliefs about ICT professionals (a highly male-dominated field), but they also reported counter-stereotypical beliefs about them. As expected, these stereotypical beliefs described a masculine portrayal of ICT workers. Contrary to expectations, most of the students' portrayals of people working in ICT were either positive or neutral, not negative. Likewise and opposite to predictions, young males did not show more positive attitudes towards ICT professionals than girls. In fact, both girls and boys evaluated more positively than negatively the different descriptive aspects associated with ICT professionals. In support of expectations, most boys and girls referred to masculine role models working in ICT. No gender differences were observed in the type of characteristics associated with ICT professionals. However, young females were more likely to offer feminine references about professions where ICT is the tool rather than the object of their work. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings within the context of Spain are discussed.

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“…The gender bias within tertiary studies of IT and CS are similar, with relatively few females studying these areas at a university level (Anderson, 2009;Barker & Aspray, 2000;Farrell, 2007). The original motivation for the series of studies reported in the current paper lies in the objective of raising the participation rate of females studying CS/IT at the university level by initiating a series of 'IT Girl' workshops.…”

Section: Purpose Of the Programmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mindstorms robots and the application of cognitive load theory in introductory programming

Mason

Cooper

2013

Computer Science Education

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This paper reports on a series of introductory programming workshops, initially targeting female high school students, which utilised Lego Mindstorms robots.Cognitive Load Theory was applied to the instructional design of the workshops and a controlled experiment was also conducted investigating aspects of the interface. Results indicated that a truncated interface led to better learning by novice programmers as measured by test performance by participants, as well as enhanced shifts in self-efficacy and lowered perception of difficulty. There was also a transfer effect to another programming environment (Alice). It is argued that the results indicate that for novice programmers the mere presence on-screen of additional (redundant) entities acts as a form of tacit distraction, thus impeding learning. The utility of Cognitive Load Theory to analyse, design and deliver aspects of computer programming environments and instructional materials is discussed.

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The State of Research on Girls and IT

Cited by 81 publications

References 0 publications

Parental and Secondary School Teachers’ Perceptions of ICT Professionals, Gender Differences and their Role in the Choice of Studies

Parental and Secondary School Teachers’ Perceptions of ICT Professionals, Gender Differences and their Role in the Choice of Studies

Gender Stereotypes and Attitudes Towards Information and Communication Technology Professionals in a Sample of Spanish Secondary Students

Mindstorms robots and the application of cognitive load theory in introductory programming

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