AGENDA

Gender Issues in Studying CS - Balkan Perspective

Mirjana Ivanović, Zoran Budimac,Zoran Putnik, Nikola Trkulja

10th Workshop “Software Engineering Education and Reverse Engineering”, Ivanjica, September

2010

AGENDA

Goals of the research and motivation

Questionnaire – Structure, Participants

Questionnaire – Data Processing, Results

Further Plans and Activities

Conclusion

Goals of the research

Inspired by results presented at DAAD WS 2008

Exploring male/female undergraduate CS students - General success rate- Professional confidence, ambitions and interests- Level of satisfaction with the choice of studies- Attitudes and beliefs towards the gender issue

Motivation

Take into consideration and compare male/female opinion

- Considerable lack of female students at universities worldwide, despite the different supporting acts made by academic community

- Find reasons for inadequate involvement of women in IT industry and research in Balkan region by exploring both male and female opinions

- Express key findings and give some useful suggestions in order to improve situation

AGENDA





Conclusion

Questionnaire – Structure

Questionnaire consisted of about hundred questions.

Divided into three main sections - General data - Motivation for enrollment- Ambitions regarding future career

There were two type of questions- Nominal scale questions (yes/no)- Ordinal scale questions (1 to 5 Lickert

scale)

Questionnaire – General data section

Students were asked questions like:- Average mark?- Are you more comfortable with CS-related, than

with math-related courses?- Do you feel worried about your future career in

the field of CS?- Rate the quality of studies on various points?- During your studies, have you felt as part of

academic community?- Rate your skills in each of the listed aspects?- Which grade did you achieve in the various

courses?

Questionnaire – Motivation for enrollment

Students were asked questions like:

- How did the following factors influence your decision to enroll this faculty?

- Which of listed fields should be covered with more courses?

- Role-models which inspired you to study CS?

- Do you plan to continue you education with master studies?

Questionnaire – Ambitions regarding future career

Students were asked questions like:

- On which job position from the list do you see yourself after completion of studies?

- On which job position do you see yourself in 10 years?

- Point out which fields of CS overall promise the most?

Questionnaire – Participants

We want to thank to all our collegues who helped us with data collection in their countries

State Gender Female Male

Albania 11 13

Serbia 42 66

Macedonia 58 114

Bosnia and Herzegovina 20 31

Total 131 224

AGENDA





Conclusion

Questionnaire – Data Processing

All data processing was done using R environment for statistical computing and graphics.

Various non-parametric technics were applied:- Nominal scale data was analysed using Fisher exact

test and Phi association coefficient.- Lickert scale data was analysed using Mann–

Whitney–Wilcoxon test, and Freemans Theta coefficient.

Emphasis was put on finding associations between gender and some other question.

Questionnaire – Results

Do you expect to have a successful career in the field of CS?


Are you more comfortable with CS-related, than with math-related courses?

Female students prefer math related courses.


Do you think studies positively influence your intellectual development?

More male studentsthink it did not.


Rate quality of CS courses?

p value = 0.81 What about Math courses?

Female

0%

2%

33%

38%

27%

1

2

3

4

5

Male

0%

4%

25%

45%

26%

1

2

3

4

5


Rate quality of Math courses?

p value = 0.000573 Maybe not so clear from these charts, but female

students rate Math courses higher.

Female

2%12%

28%

36%

22%

1

2

3

4

5

Male

6%

19%

35%

28%

12%

1

2

3

4

5


How did interest in computers influence your decision to enroll this faculty ?


How did parents influence your decision to enroll this faculty ?


In order to prepare for successful career in CS, do you think there should be more electronics courses?


Please rate knowledge of informatics of female teachers?

p value = 10e-6


Please rate knowledge of informatics of male teachers?

p value = 0.005


Is Computer Science good field for women?


Is Computer Science good field for men?


Do you consider there is a lack of women in CS ?

p value < 0.05


In CS, women tend to be more careful than men?

p value is almost 0.

AGENDA





Conclusion


Add more countries into the research Conduct statistical tests for each country,

and found out if there is significant differences beetwen countries.

Also find correlations beetwen answers on some pairs of lickert scale questions.

Interpret computed statistics and work towards writing a paper on this subject.

AGENDA





Conclusion

Conclusion

Present satisfaction with the choice of studies

Participants expressed serious and ambitious attitudes regarding their career objectives

Female students are little bit more ambitious, maybe because their male collegues do not fully recognize their hard work.

Some number of male students think that they can do pretty much anything better then females.

Thank you for your attention

You are welcome to ask questions?

AGENDA

Documents

Transcript of AGENDA