Perception versus reality: towards a profile of female computing students

Female students are strongly under represented in courses offered by the School of Computing at Curtin University of Technology. Recruitment of female students becomes an issue not only under equity concerns, but because retention within the School is higher than recruitment numbers warrant. In order to gain an insight into the background of a successful female computing student, at the end of 1997 a pilot project was undertaken through the Building Educational Diversity in Engineering and Science (BEDES) funding at Curtin. This produced a preliminary profile of the virtual undergraduate student. At the commencement of the 1998 academic year first semester, first year students were surveyed in order to capture characteristics of female students at recruitment. Information obtained should enable efforts to focus on both attracting an increasing number of like females, and on making the course more appealing to other females.