The Virtual student : a study to

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. This paper looks at a pilot study to construct a profile of a typical female Computing student at Curtin, both undergraduate and graduate, in particular with an indication of the timing of the decisions which led to their enrolment in these courses. Such a profile might allow the School of Computing to focus its PR and marketing to the appropriate groups/schools/ages. Introduction There has been much recent and ongoing discussion on the topic of the recruitment and retention of students from under represented groups in Science and Engineering courses. Reports from universities around Australia presented at WIC’971 indicate that Curtin University is of Technology less able to recruit females into computer science-type courses. Figures at numerous other universities hover around the 20% mark compared to Curtin’s 10 12%2. However, based on School of Computing Annual Report statistics, student demographics3 suggest that while recruitment of females into School of Computing courses at Curtin University is poor, the retention rate is better. In addition, recruitment of females into graduate and post-graduate courses is higher than into undergraduate courses. Background The entrance requirements to undergraduate courses offered through the School of Computing at Curtin University include a good pass in Mathematics subjects. Calculus and Applicable Mathematics is the base requirement, but a good pass in just Applicable Mathematics may enable a student to enrol, with an additional mathematics component attached to the course. There is no mathematics prerequisite to enrolling in graduate or post-graduate courses offered. Of course an implicit requirement exists for post-graduate courses in that an appropriate computing degree is a prerequisite. Women in Computing Workshop, Melbourne University July 1997. Delegates were asked to collate student demographics these were presented as a poster session during the Workshop. See the appendix for a summary of these statistics, as presented at WIC’97. Research into gender and mathematics (as, for example, that reported in Fennema 1996) suggests that even as recently as 1990, many females choose to limit their options at University by not studying mathematics during secondary school. The bottom line would seem to be that mathematics has not offered them a life they wish to lead (Fennema 1996 p 22), and that, even if it did, the embedding of mathematics learning in male contexts (Willis 1996 p 45), has negative influence on girls’ learning (Fennema 1996). Even greater gender-typing would seem to exist when computing is brought into the equation, so that as early as Year 9 (14-15 years old), secondary students are associating computing, with mathematics, as belonging to a male domain a contextual association is shown to exist between mathematics, physics and computing, so that a positive attitude towards the former two subjects relates to a positve attitude towards computer literacy, at least (Makrakis and Sawada 1996 p 228, 225). The commonly held belief that computers are "built" from mathematical elements and concepts may also lead to the inference that a mathematical inclination is a necessity for working with computers (Makrakis and Sawada 1996 p 230). The entry requirements for School of Computing undergraduate courses at Curtin University do nothing to dispel this belief. In terms of the outcomes of computing studies, research undertaken through Deakin University shows that the stereotype remains in force even after entry into Computer Science courses at University. Secondary students categorised computing careers as boring, menial and not sufficiently challenging, with the essential ingredient of "sitting in front of the computer all day" (Clarke and Teague 1996 p 243). Career prospects involved either programming/technical computing, or office work of the ilk of word processing. University Computer Science students reinforced the stereotype of technical, male sextyped and mathematical career paths, showed enormous preoccupation with programming as the dominant activity undertaken, and expressed a sense of isolation when developing programs (Clarke and Teague 1996 p 243). Note was made that there were few differences between female and male responses from the University students. This stereotyping, distilled to that of a young, male hacker, and a female word processing operator, is further reinforced by parental attitude. A study of undergraduate college students found that males who believed their parents held a gender-typed view of computing had greater confidence and interest in computing thon other male students. This view existed as a negative reinforcement in female students where females believed their parents held the view of computing as a male domain, their confidence and interest was less than other female students. Both males and female students with parental encouragement showed greater self confidence, interest and awareness of the benefits of computing in their daily life (Shashaani 1997 p 44). The parental view would seem to have even greater influence in the (what to) studyrelated decision making process, so that where success at a male gender-typed subject may be attributed to ability in a male, it is likely to be seen as an outcome of effort in the female, said to be debilitating to one’s self esteem and confidence (Shashaani 1997 p 47). The result of all these influences, coupled with females’ lack of perceived usefulness of computing (Clarke and Teague 1996 p 244), is that females are discouraged from entering computing fields at an early stage in their education. An additional factor is that the computing students see at secondary school has little commonality with tertiary level Computer Science courses. The suggestion has been made (Gale et al 1997 p 23) that, based on the secondary subjects offered, computing is seen as a ’weak’ option. Females with strengths in the relevant subject areas prefer to target more ’professional’ courses, such as medicine, law etc.