Stereotypes

A friend of mine just e-mailed me a link to two articles about women in computer science (thanks Jack!) which I thought were interesting and I thought that I would share.

The first article is about a psychology researcher, Professor Sapna Cheryan who did her PhD at Standford and is now a professor of psychology at University of Washington. She is looking into computer science stereotypes and how they affects women's and men's interest in computer science. Professor Cheryan sets up two computer science classrooms - one which is filled with stereotypically geeky things like Star Wars posters, computer parts lying on the floor, cans of soda all over the table, and Star Trek figurines; and another which is filled with items that are not associated with the "geek" stereotype such as water bottles, neutral abstract art posters, and potted plants. She brings subjects in and asks them to rate their interest in computer science.

Cheryan [...] has placed students in situations like this for nearly five years. She has found that women rate themselves as less interested in computer science than men in the “geek room” described above. But in a room decorated more neutrally with art posters, nature photos, and water bottles, their interest levels were about the same.

The article goes on to describe Cheryan's explanation of why there is such a difference in interest levels between men and women when placed in these situations:

Women don't identify with the archetypal image of computer scientists. Cheryan's subjects describe this image as “nerdy, techie, stay up late coding, energy drinks, no social life.… They don't frequently take showers.” The geek room conjures this picture in our minds, Cheryan says, based only on the stuff we find lying around.

Now Cheryan has moved to virtual classrooms which allows more control over the environment and has allowed her to place avatars in seats in the classroom or a teacher. Going back to this theme of "seeing people like you" - Cheryan can place all women in the seats or put a female teacher in the front of the virtual classroom to see if these things change interest levels.

The virtual classrooms have been put into all sorts of configurations with different avatars or no avatars. Students were again asked about interest in computer science and also about which room had a more masculine vibe. Cheryan found the following:

Every time they changed the study, the results were the same: Most women avoided the geek space. When prompted, many said it gave them a masculine vibe. The more masculine they found the room, the less they liked it.

Very interesting article!

The second article was much shorter and focused on "pair programming." The studies conducted seem to based on a gender differences model - that pair programming would make programming a more social activity and thus attract more women. However, the findings were that pair programming helps retention regardless of gender.

“I thought it would give a boost to women, but the results were gender-neutral,” McDowell says. “It helped everybody.”

Students were paired in some introductory programming classes and not paired in others. Students who were paired were supposed to complete homework assignments as a pair, but do exams solo and students in the other class did everything alone. The findings were pretty drastic:

A year later, 59 percent of the paired female students were still computer science majors, compared with 22 percent of the women who programmed solo. The results were striking for men as well: the department retained 74 percent of male pair programmers, versus 47 percent of lone coders.

Again, these studies show that a gender differences model is not acceptable for explaining women's low enrollment in computer science - the first article shows that it is clearly a cultural thing. The second article shows that the social aspect of computer science appeals to both men and women despite researchers belief that it would only boost women's retention.

Retention and Attrition Rates in CS

This past week I have been looking into retention and attrition rates of both men and women in CS programs. One of the first papers that I looked at was the paper about the University of Malaysia - Women in Computer Science: NO SHORTAGE HERE! by Mazliza Othman and Rodziah Latih. Here are the tables which show intake and withdrawal / failure rates based on gender.


The university has fairly equal intake rates and in almost all years (with the exception of 1999/2000) examined in this study, more men failed / withdrew from the program each year.

While attrition rates may be fairly low overall, and in particular for women at the University of Malaysia, that is not the case at many U.S. universities.

In the paper Scavenger Hunt: Computer Science Retention Through Orientation by Talton et al. from the University of Illinois:

"Like many large research universities, the University of Illinois has struggled with the high attrition rate of first-year students in computing disciplines. In the five year period prior to 2003, roughly 25% of the total number of entering freshmen have dropped out of the program by the end of their first year (see Table 1). In particular, the attrition rate of women and minority students is quite high, averaging about 35% for the same period."

Similar situations exist even at CMU.

In a paper on W@SCS, (Women in Computer Science: The Carnegie Mellon Experience by Lenore Blum), Blum looks at retention rates of men and women in CS.

In a paper (not the book), Unlocking the Clubhouse: The Carnegie Mellon Experience, Margolis and Fisher examine the same data at CMU and show promising trends of retention of women in CS.


These graphs so something that should not be surprising, that higher percentages of women in the major seems to lead to higher retention. In Blum's paper Peter Lee, Associate Dean for Computer Science Undergraduate Education at the time is quoted as saying, "[Retention] seems unnecessarily negative to me, and at any rate seems to aim too low. The goal, it seems to me, is to take advantage of the great recruiting success and produce a crop of graduating women who will be the future leaders, world-class scientists, visionaries, and captains of industry. . . . "

Other factors which seem to raise retention rates of women in CS are discussed in IMPROVING THE PERSISTENCE OF FIRST-YEAR UNDERGRADUATE WOMEN IN COMPUTER SCIENCE by Rita Manco Powell. Powell did a study at UPenn about retention and found that there was a 50% persistence rate of women before changes were implemented compared with an 85% persistence rate after changes were implemented which is equal to the male persistence rate. Some changes include more faculty-student interaction, social gatherings for students, mentoring groups, and the organization of WICS (Women in Computer Science). These are very similar to the findings at CMU with the organization of W@SCS.

Powell also examined why women were leaving CS - why the attrition rates were so high:

"This research study found that many of the study participants began the computer science major with an inadequate background from high school in the subject, causing them to struggle to perform as well as their peers with more computer science experience. Because of this fact, which was further heightened by the women’s perception that the male students knew more than they, several women lost confidence in their ability to be successful in the major and subsequently lost interest in the major. Social isolation accompanied their gender minority status within their peer group further weakening their resolve to persist."

I am interested in examining whether women at CMU have similar reasons for leaving CS, and also examining what men's reasons are. I am currently working on coming up with interview questions for men and women who have switched out of SCS at CMU. I am also interested in looking at attrition and retention rates, because I know of 4 women in my year who have left CS (and a few in other years), but I don't believe that I know of any men who started in CS and are now in a different major.