Gender-based analysis of Information Technology skills Development among Business Computing Students

This research focuses on gender-based analysis in information technology skills development among undergraduate students in a University. In the first part of this research we performed literature review to find out expectations of female students in computer science curriculum and to establish factors that hinder women from practicing IT profession. From literature, we discovered several factors that block women from practicing Information Technology profession. These include: poor attitude towards technology profession, gender discrimination by employers, social issues such as family commitments, and believe that IT is a male profession. We then administered questionnaires to 90 University students offering courses in Information Technology and Business. Our survey results show that there is no significant difference between male and female students’ interest in programming courses and perception that business courses are easier than information technology courses. However, there were some exceptions from qualitative results in which some female students described IT profession are male career and time-consuming for mothers. We developed gender-based guidelines for teaching IT courses in a University. More research is needed in this area in gender-based analysis of challenges facing IT practitioners in industry. Keywords— Information Technology curriculum, Gender-based analysis