Changes in CS students' sttitudes towards CS over time: an examination of gender differences

ABSTRACT

Few women major in Computer Science (CS), which creates a serious bottleneck of women qualified to enter into the CS workforce. To address this bottleneck, this study examines gender issues in CS education. We assessed whether gender differences in CS students' stereotypes of CS and attitudes towards CS classes and the CS program remain stable from one semester to the next. We found that gender differences in CS students are not temporally stable and conclude that one-time assessments of gender differences may lead to erroneous conclusions. We also found that concerns about future work-family conflicts and gender issues in the CS program (e.g., female CS students feeling that they are not being taken as seriously as male CS students) emerged as important concerns for female CS students.0The implications of these findings for increasing the representation of women in CS are discussed.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Computer science education

General Terms:
Experimentation, Measurement, Theory

Keywords:
attitudes towards CS, gender and CS, gender differences, stereotyping