W OMEN AND
T ECHNOLOGY
A Project Proposal
Women have for years struggled to become a prominent feature in
computing industry, and many factors are laid to blame for this. From
issues with our education system, with a lack of support and general
disinterest into introducing girls to STEM based subjects, to social attitudes
that are still going strong that woman do not possess the skills needed for
computing. A distract overhaul is needed and this project aims to look into
creating new research into why woman are still the minority in computer
science.
Elena Lockett
8/18/2006
WOMEN AND TECHNOLOGY
A Project Proposal
1. Problem Statement
In today’s modern world, gender equality is battled for and we strive to
ensure the sex of a person in no way obstructs their aims and goals in life.
Wages for men and women are on their way to being equal, sexist behaviour
is frowned upon and no longer do we live by the stereotypical nature that a
man earns the living and the woman makes a home. So why, in this
apparently modernized world, do women still remain the minority in STEM
based subjects such as, mathematics, science and computing. In a world
where more females attend university than males1, women still continue to
only make up a disproportionately small segment of Computer Science
majors2. Many factors have been attributed towards the shocking decrease in
both women achieving degrees in Computer Science subjects and then
continuing to work in those Computer Science subject areas; lack of female
role models, gender stereotypes, peer pressure and general lack of interest in
the STEM subjects.
The aim of this project is to gain a deeper understanding into why women
still steer away from working in Computing. How the idea that a women is
incapable of achieving in a Computer Science subject is seen as normal and
socially acceptable in the 21st century. To actually listen to women and their
experiences of how they were influenced into choosing their career
path/degree specialism. To gain a better understanding to why a social
stigma still revolves around Computing and why this continues to disenchant
females.
The report consists of a background into the research area, primarily focusing
on literature review of other similar studies, including specific studies into
Ratcliffe, R. (2013). The gender gap at universities: where are all the men?. Available:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/datablog/2013/jan/29/how-many-men-and-women-arestudying-at-my-university. Last accessed 21st May 2014.
2 Beede, D. Julian, T. Langdon, D. McKittrick, G. Khan, B Doms, M. (2011). Women in
STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation . U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and
Statistics Administration 11 . #04-11 (1), 1.
1
girls and computing. The different forms of methodology intended to be used
to gain more knowledge about girls who study STEM subjects such as
interviews, surveys etc. and then how this data will be analysed and then
linked with previous studies and research, to show common themes and areas
of importance. Details of implications for education and Computing can be
found in the future work sections and any possible resources that may be
needed to further my studies. Finally, any included references used in this
proposal.
2. Literature Review
Due to extremely obvious lack of females in the computing industry, a large
amount of time and effort has been dedicated towards the understanding into
why the figures of male and females students partaking in computing courses
are so vastly different. A lot of attention has placed upon the fact that
education that girls receive has swayed them away from the sciences3
(Rossiter 1982; Keller 1985; Harding 1996), to the extent that gender
stereotyping still thrives in our education system, influencing girls and boys
towards different subjects in secondary and tertiary education and thus
influencing the segregation between men and women in the workplace. At the
most impressionable age, if children are told girls do these subjects and boys
do those, how are they expected to see this as unusual, when educators (who
they are taught to trust and listen to) teach them stereotypes like this. Of
course, the argument that girls simply don’t want to do computing is used to
make figures like, “the percentage of jobs held by women in computer science,
is lower today than it was in 1983”4 (Commission on Professionals in Science
& Technology, 2004) seem acceptable or in extreme cases, researchers even
state women are unsuited because they lack the ability needed, implying that
men possess some knowledge that women cannot have or learn to have.
Children should be told from a young age, to aim high and pursue their
dreams, and if girls are taught they are unsuitable for a certain subject, what
is stopping them thinking that about others? A change in teaching methods
and opinions teachers hold needs to be addressed. Computing is clouded in
the idea that is solely a male only subject, with various stereotypes of the atypical computing student still being connected to the department. Even male
Wajcman, J. (2007). From Women and Technology to Gendered Technoscience. n/a. 1 (1),
288.
4 Singh, K. Allen, K. Scheckler, R. Darlington, L.. (2007). Women in Computer-Related
Majors: A Critical Synthesis of Research and Theory from 1994 to 2005. Review of
Educational Research. 77 (4), 501.
3
computing professionals stereotype computing with other typical male
behaviours that allow men to “grow chest hair, spit, chew, bench 250 pounds
and write a computer program”5 People state they don’t let public opinion
and peer pressure influence their decisions but it could help explain the
differences in male/female participation, due to the lack of encouragement
and the unattractive image portrayed by the subject, which dissuades a large
amount of females, but not all as recent studies show 25 percent of large sized
undergraduate Computer Science departments are made up of women6.
People look up to role models, so if women have no female role models in the
computing industry, how can they start to perceive computing in a way they
find both attractive and endearing. In such a male dominated industry, a
women would be lucky to not feel singled out and maybe not have the
confidence they would have in an equally divided gender occupation. The
cultural context of computing can have an effect on the self-confidence on
those women who do decide to pursue an education/career in computing, as
stereotypes about whether a woman is able to progress in computing would
clearly affect their entry, performance and persistence to achieve by reducing
their own self-confidence.7 Positive research has also been conducted
throughout the years, to help create and build up a greater knowledge of
what helps women decide to embark on a career in computing, knowledge
that can hopefully be transferred to the education system to change the
stereotypical air about computing. Undergraduate women partaking in
Computer Science majors often do so because computing seems to fit their
personal strengths best, they have encouragement from family and social
peers and it allows them to be creative in their own way8. Another study
focused on the fact that although girls may be partaking in computer science
majors, the percent that continue in computer-related occupational fields falls
vastly9 (Bartol & Aspray, 2006) so perhaps more needs to be done to increase
the attractiveness of the computing sector.
Cohoon, J. (2003). Must There Be So Few? Including Women in CS. SIGCSE. n/a (n/a), 670.
Cohoon, J. (2003). Must There Be So Few? Including Women in CS. SIGCSE. n/a (n/a), 671.
7 Cohoon, J. (2007). Gendered Experiences of Computing Graduate Programs. SIGCSE. n/a
(n/a), 547.
8 Cohoon, J. (2002). Recruiting and Retaining Women in Undergraduate Computing
Majors. SIGCSE Bulletin. 34 (2), 48.
9 Singh, K. Allen, K. Scheckler, R. Darlington, L.. (2007). Women in Computer-Related
Majors: A Critical Synthesis of Research and Theory from 1994 to 2005. Review of
Educational Research. 77 (4), 502.
5
6
3. Methodology
The ethical policies of the School of Computing and Communications at
Lancaster University are to ensure informed consent of all participants will
be strictly followed and UK and EU guidelines on the collection, storage and
use of data to ensure anonymity, confidentiality, privacy and security will be
implemented. The aim of the project is to build a better understanding into
why women still shy away from STEM based subject choices, thus reducing
the amount of women in the workplace for those subjects. Many different
types of research have been dedicated to finding the problem and the best
way to see first-hand why females are pushed away from Computing is to
conduct a range of research methods to build a collection of data that can be
analysed and compared to previous findings to detect patterns. Three
different methods of methodology are going to be used; interviews, autoethnography and survey.
i.
Interviews
Qualitative research interview seeks to cover both a factual and a meaning
level, which is perfect to help understand what prior experiences have
allowed negative connotations towards women and computing to become the
norm. Interviews allow control to hand over to the interviewee, giving them
more freedom to properly express their thoughts and feelings towards a topic
and as the subject area can be quite a personal one, conducting semi
structured interviews, where flexibility is allowed, seems most appropriate.
Due to the differences in age of the target interviewees, different tactics will
have be deployed as students studying at university level will response better
to more open-ended compared questions compared to students studying at
primary school, who will need more structure in their questioning, with more
emphasis upon picture based questions/video aids. As interviewees of a young
age will be harder to engage, more interactive techniques will need to be put
in place such as, setting drawing tasks and asking the child to draw a
scientist (to then see if they draw a man or a woman, thus proving if gender
stereotypes still exist). This format of research provides reliable, qualitative
data, due to the inclusion of open-ended questions to ensure important topics
are stuck to. Pilot interviews will need to be conducted to ensure appropriate,
questions are developed, that will ensure the research will reach its full
potential.
ii.
Auto-Ethnography
Auto-Ethnography is “an approach to research and writing that seeks to
describe and systematically analyse personal experience”10 and due to the
personal connotations to the subject of women and computing, it’s beneficial
to use these personal views to an advantage. Using a personal approach, can
be helpful to aid understanding into whether experiences affect life choices
(for example, whether having a positive teaching experience, directly affects
the emotions a person feels towards that subject/topic). Although not as
reliable as interviews, it allows a freer, more honest and open account than
semi-structured interviews which can help push interviewees to the answer
the interviewer desires. Auto-Ethnography will solely focus on myself and my
own experiences, to not only justify motivation but also provide another
source of evidence to the cause.
iii.
Survey
Survey methodology allows a sample of data to be inspected, rather than
specifying interviewing the target market, it allows different rationales of
people to questioned and thus helps provides a more rounded review of
opinions. It might not be the primary concern to interview students who
study non-STEM subjects but it would help create a more 3-dimensional view
of why students do computing and why they don’t. A sample of participants
would need to be selected, to ensure they are appropriate for the survey and
once they’ve taken part in the survey, the result need to be analyzed and
check for accuracy/patterns. The questions must provide results that are
useful and will be beneficial to the study such as, do you remember your ICT
lessons at high school to be interesting, boring or indifferent? This question
would provide backup to whether the way ICT/Computing is taught is
affecting the numbers studying it.
4. Analytic Stance
Once all this data has been collected using the various forms of methodology I
have selected, an equally important stage of the project is ensuring the
information is accurately analysed to ensure its full meaning and content is
understood which will help when comparing the findings to existing studies.
Ellis, C. Adams, T & Bochner, A. (2011). Autoethnography: An Overview. Qualitative
Social Research. 12 (1), n/a.
10
The most accurate form of analysing this data is through grounded analysis.
Another qualitative research approach, this works best with research that
raises generative questions but doesn’t allow those questions to control the
research, confining it to yes/no answers. Through gathering data, core
theoretical concept(s) are identified which can help gauge links between the
concepts and the data. There are various key analytic strategies; coding,
memoing and integrative diagrams and sessions11. The coding strategy would
involve categorising the data and describing the implications of the meaning
of it, it is first done open coding which considers every minute detail and then
moves on to selective coding. Memoing allows the researcher to record their
thoughts as they work on the study, to ensure any little idea is remembered,
however big or small. This allows the memos to be very open when sometimes
when analysing data at the end of the study, thoughts can be become too
focused on the core concept. Lastly, integrative diagrams and sessions bring
all the details together, to allow theories and concepts to become linked and
gain dependence upon each other. Many different forms of graphic can used,
such as concept maps or simple cartoons, as long as they summarise the
work.
5. Analysis
Once the initial set of findings has been analysed, it can then be compared
and contrasted to previous studies and existing reports. This helps show
which theories have the most strength if they have significant links to a
range of other studies on women and technology and will help give
prominence to the theories which have been repeatedly brought up and then
backed up with analysed studies. Hopefully, areas that should become clear
in the issue of women and technology will bring themselves to light through
this analysis, some of which might be teaching methods causing students to
steer clear of certain subjects, peer pressure from fellow students or schools
still not trying to aim STEM subjects towards females and thus helping
deepen the gap between males and females in STEM based subjects. It will
also then become apparent if any new trends/theories have made themselves
apparent through the comparison to existing studies, because technology is a
11
Trochim, W. (2006). Qualitative Approaches. Available:
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/. Last accessed 20th May 2014.
vastly changing environment and a lot of the studies referenced will be
‘obsolete’ in a sense due to development of computing and the way we teach
it, such as, the introduction of teaching computing skills in primary schools.
The results from the project will then feed into some more general
understandings of gender and technology, in an overall view.
6. Implications/Future Work
The main aim of this project, is to discover and provide justification and
backup to existing theories and studies, thus proving which areas are
attracting/repelling women from computing. To uncover some understanding
and develop some sensitivities into what the possible reason for rejection of
STEM subjects by women (or STEM subjects rejection of them). There are
several possible implications that might come from the findings hopefully
attained at different macro/micro levels in terms of new thinking about the
curriculum (such as the study of women scientists etc.); new approaches to
teaching and learning that are perhaps more ‘female friendly’; some work
into changes of how subjects market themselves to males and females.
7. Work Schedule
The project will run over the course of the year and therefore needs planning and
organization to ensure tasks are done in plenty of time with space for any issues that
may occur. The project is to last over 20 weeks and over this time various tasks must
be done, but to ensure the project is able to being at the start of one week, reading
will be done over the summer to prepare for the first challenge; designing of
interview/questionnaire schedule and pilot study. Over the duration of the project,
several major tasks will occur;
-
-
-
Design of interview/questionnaire (week 1-2) where questions will be
prepared and trialled to ensure appropriateness and the full potential of the
research is being obtained
Interviews, transcriptions etc. (week 2-12) interviewing appropriate
candidates (university undergraduates, primary school children) to build up a
collection of data and then transcribing the interviews
Analysis of data (week 13-16) using the collected data to analyse patterns and
trends to work out where the fault is with computing and women
Writing report (week 17-20) collating the analysed data to write a report
about the implications of the results and connections to previous studies,
which may lead to new studies.
GANT Chart:
8. Bibliography
Beede, D. Julian, T. Langdon, D. McKittrick, G. Khan, B Doms, M. (2011). Women in
STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation . U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and
Statistics Administration 11 . #04-11 (1), 1.
Cohoon, J. (2002). Recruiting and Retaining Women in Undergraduate Computing
Majors. SIGCSE Bulletin. 34 (2), 48.
Cohoon, J. (2003). Must There Be So Few? Including Women in CS. SIGCSE. n/a
(n/a), 670.
Cohoon, J. (2003). Must There Be So Few? Including Women in CS. SIGCSE. n/a
(n/a), 671.
Cohoon, J. (2007). Gendered Experiences of Computing Graduate
Programs. SIGCSE. n/a (n/a), 547.
Ellis, C. Adams, T & Bochner, A. (2011). Autoethnography: An Overview. Qualitative
Social Research. 12 (1), n/a.
Ratcliffe, R. (2013). The gender gap at universities: where are all the men?. Available:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/datablog/2013/jan/29/how-many-men-andwomen-are-studying-at-my-university. Last accessed 21st May 2014.
Singh, K. Allen, K. Scheckler, R. Darlington, L.. (2007). Women in Computer-Related
Majors: A Critical Synthesis of Research and Theory from 1994 to 2005. Review of
Educational Research. 77 (4), 501.
Singh, K. Allen, K. Scheckler, R. Darlington, L.. (2007). Women in Computer-Related
Majors: A Critical Synthesis of Research and Theory from 1994 to 2005. Review of
Educational Research. 77 (4), 502.
Trochim, W. (2006). Qualitative Approaches. Available:
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/. Last accessed 20th May 2014.
Wajcman, J. (2007). From Women and Technology to Gendered Technoscience. n/a.
1 (1), 288.