'Because it's boring, irrelevant and I don't like computers': Why high school girls avoid professionally-oriented ICT subjects

The current paper details results from the Girls and ICT survey phase of a three year study investigating factors associated with low participation rates by females in education pathways leading to professional level information and communications technology (ICT) professions. The study is funded through the Australian Research Council's (ARC) Linkage Grants Scheme. It involves a research partnership between Education Queensland (EQ), industry partner Technology One and academic researchers at (affiliation removed for review purposes). Respondents to the survey were 1453 senior high school girls. Comparisons were drawn between Takers (n=131) and Non Takers (n=1322) of advanced level computing subjects. Significant differences between the groups were found on four questions: ''The subjects are interesting''; ''I am very interested in computers''; ''The subject will be helpful to me in my chosen career path after school''; and ''It suited my timetable''. The research has demonstrated that senior high school girls tend to perceive advanced computing subjects as boring and they express a strong aversion to computers.

[1]  V.W. Ross,et al.  Women and Minorities in Information Technology , 2008, 2008 DoD HPCMP Users Group Conference.

[2]  Allan Fisher,et al.  Unlocking the Clubhouse : Women in Computing by Allan Fisher , 2015 .

[3]  L. Werner,et al.  The Girls Creating Games Program: Strategies for Engaging Middle-School Girls in Information Technology , 2005 .

[4]  Yair Wand,et al.  Using objects for systems analysis , 1997, CACM.

[5]  Courtney,et al.  Girls and ICT Survey: initial findings , 2006 .

[6]  N. R. Anderson Making the link: three successful university, industry and community collaborations around ICT development , 2003 .

[7]  Margaret M. Burnett,et al.  Effectiveness of end-user debugging software features: are there gender issues? , 2005, CHI.

[8]  Tracy Camp,et al.  An ACM-W literature review on women in computing , 2002, SGCS.

[9]  Kate M. Kaiser,et al.  Early determinants of women in the IT workforce: a model of girls' career choices , 2005, Inf. Technol. People.

[10]  Celine Latulipe,et al.  CS girls rock: sparking interest in computer science and debunking the stereotypes , 2003, SIGCSE.

[11]  Gary Schmidt,et al.  Reasons women pursue a computer science career: perspectives of women from a mid-sized institution , 2004 .

[12]  Joanne McGrath Cohoon,et al.  Must there be so few? Including women in CS , 2003, 25th International Conference on Software Engineering, 2003. Proceedings..

[13]  Carol Frieze Diversifying the images of computer science: undergraduate women take on the challenge! , 2005 .

[14]  C. Frieze Diversifying the images of computer science: undergraduate women take on the challenge! , 2005, SIGCSE '05.

[15]  Colin Lankshear,et al.  Redressing the Gender Imbalance in ICT Professions: Toward State-Level Strategic Approaches , 2005 .

[16]  Tracy Camp,et al.  The incredible shrinking pipeline , 1997, CACM.