this article. 1 Evidence that women's success in computer science varies over time was provided in an article by Camp that appeared in Communications in 1997 [2]. In this article, Camp documented the rise and fall in the female proportion of computer science Bachelor's degrees between 1981 and 1994. Camp also noted that this variation was affected by the type of college (engineering/nonengineering) in which a CS department was located. Figure 1 expands Camp 's timeframe to the most recent available data and reconfirms that women's proportion of CS Bachelor 's degrees waxes and wanes. As Figure 1 shows, women comprised 14% of CS Bachelor's degrees in the U.S. in 1971; this percentage rose to 37% by 1984, and then dropped 10 percentage points over the subsequent 13 years. These temporal changes in female representation are not statistical phantoms that can be easily explained away. In particular, they are not attributable to general trends in female educ

1 Abstract — Traditional introductory computer science (CS) courses have had little

A human-centric issue that has not been considered in the design of end-user programming environments is whether gender differences exist that are important to the design of these environments. Ignoring this issue would miss the opportunity of enhancing the effectiveness of end-user programmers by incorporating appropriate mechanisms to support gender-associated differences in decision making, learning, and problem solving. This paper takes a first step toward building a foundation for investigating this issue by surveying gender difference literature from five domains with an eye toward possible implications for end-user programming. We present a taxonomy of this literature, and derive a number of specific issues for each element of the taxonomy (stated as hypotheses). This foundation provides a starting point for organized investigations into issues that may be important for making breakthroughs in the effectiveness of end-user programmers.

the programming patterns of domestic appliances.

Although gender differences in a technological world are receiving significant research attention, much of the research and practice has aimed at how society and education can impact the successes and retention of female computer science professionals—but the possibility of gender issues within software has received almost no attention. If gender issues exist with some types of software features, it is possible that accommodating them by changing these features can increase effectiveness, but only if we know what these issues are. In this paper, we empirically investigate gender differences for end users in the context of debugging spreadsheets. Our results uncover significant gender differences in self-efficacy and feature acceptance, with females exhibiting lower self-efficacy and lower feature acceptance. The results also show that these differences can significantly reduce females ’ effectiveness.

Pair programming has been found to be very beneficial in educational settings. Students who pair in their introductory programming course are more confident, have greater course completion and pass rates, and are more likely to persist in computer-related majors. Although pairing helps all students, we believe that it is particularly beneficial for women because it addresses several significant factors that limit women's participation in computer science. We provide reasons for our belief that pair programming helps women persist in these majors. We also repeat, with special emphasis on the impact on women, some details published elsewhere regarding our experiments on pair programming with college and university students. Additionally, we provide new data that support our original findings.

This paper describes a study of undergraduate women’s retention in the first-year of the computer science major at the University of Pennsylvania for the purpose of identifying the underlying issues responsible for attrition. The subsequent steps taken by the faculty to improve women’s retention is also discussed. Categories and Subject Descriptors

Abstract: The pipeline for women and minorities entering CS/IT is shrinking. Using a combination of multimedia e-learning and mentoring, we seek to widen the pipeline in both first year college courses and grades 7-12. We are developing multimedia that complements a new first semester Computer Science (CS0) textbook. For grades 7-12, we plan to establish outreach teams consisting of undergraduate and graduate student Teaching Fellows, teachers and administrators, faculty members, and industry professionals. This year, two outreach teams will adapt multimedia designed for CS0 for use in middle schools. Preliminary results show that the multimedia promotes learning of Java programming “objects first, ” for both undergraduates and high school students. One outreach team will adapt these Java materials for use in a high school. Another team will adapt multimedia introducing the field of CS for use in a middle school, seeking to clear up common misconceptions about Computer Science.

Computer science departments today face a serious staffing crisis, as faculty and graduate students abandon academia for industry while undergraduate enrollments rise. The current crisis is similar to one that occurred in the early 1980s, which gives us the opportunity to learn from that experience. This article reviews the history of the earlier crisis and proposes strategies for mitigating the effects of the current one. 1. Introduction excitement in the computing industry and want to be part of As those seeking to hire new faculty are already aware, there is a crisis facing academic computer science. Undergraduate enrollments are rising rapidly, while the number of Ph.D. students seeking academic positions is falling. As a result,

Association (IRMA) Conference. Both conferences were held in Philadelphia, PA. The current version of the study provides additional data analysis and implications. Forthcoming in Data Base for Advances in Information Systems In this paper, I examine how and why the situated knowledge and lived experiences of working-class African American women shape their standpoint on information technology (IT). Using the biblical metaphor of the exodus and narratives of ascent, these women view IT access and training as part of a strategy for escaping poverty and despair. Whereas most of the extant gender and IT research provides rich insights into the marginalization of women, the women in this study felt empowered by IT. This contradictory outcome has three implications for the study of gender and IT. First, researchers must consider the multiple identities such as gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and sexuality that shape and are shaped by women’s engagement with IT. Second, the notion of IT workforce should take into account not only the highly skilled IT workers who design and build IT artifacts, but should also consider the lower skilled workers who indirectly use IT. Third, IT training programs that serve working-class women must go beyond the transfer of IT skills to individuals. They must also redress the persistent structural barriers of poverty, spatial isolation, illiteracy, sporadic work, and racial and ethnic discrimination that systematically limit women’s ability to compete for jobs that provide higher incomes, greater safety, more security, full-time hours, increased benefits, higher status, and less stressful work environments. ACM Categories: K4.2, K4.3