Connie Nguyen Tran Mentor: Mark Warschauer August 30, 2007

Increasing Girls’ Access to Advanced Technology Use:Lessons from Community-Based High-Tech Classes

Connie Nguyen TranMentor: Mark WarschauerAugust 30, 2007

Introduction

In 2006, 26% of professional IT related occupations in U.S. held by women (NCWIT, 2007)

Lack of girls in technology based classes Less experience with technology Teachers and the students have biases about male

and female competency in computer fluency (AAUW Educational Foundation, 2000).

Boys and girls use computers differently

Objective

What learning environments encourage female participation and interest in technology?

1) What is the impact of an equal learning opportunity on girls’ technology fluency?

2) What are male and female students’ beliefs regarding gender and technology?

3) What are the best teaching practices that promote gender equality in technology-based classrooms?

Methods

Observations and interviews of technology based classes at community learning center

Robotics—Vex robotics system Web design—Dreamweaver and Flash Comic design—Comic Book Creator Game design—Multimedia Fusion 2

Developer and The Games Factory 2

Methods

Observations•10 hours of observations of robotics•2 hours of game creation/extreme•8 hours of web design/comic/game designTotal: 20 hours of observations

Interviews•1 instructor•2 girls•4 boys

Results: Low female enrollment

Total: 210

Boys: 134

Girls: 76

Gender Distribution

13

30

108

129

16

22

7 6

10

17

3

13

5

29

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Girl

s

Boy

s

Girl

s

Boy

s

Girl

s

Boy

s

Girl

s

Boy

s

Girl

s

Boy

s

Girl

s

Boy

s

Girl

s

Boy

s

Girl

s

Boy

s

Golf Health andFitness

StartSomething

Getting Readyfor Jr. High

Science Engineering BattleBots

MindstormRobotics

Class

Nu

mb

er

of

Stu

de

nts

Results: Low female enrollment

“I didn't want to sign up for it, but they told me that-cause I wanted to sign up for the health thing, and they told me I couldn't cause it was already full, so they signed me up for robotics.”--Girl, Grade 7

Results: Low female enrollment

Class Boys Girls Total

Game Creation/Extreme

11 0 11

Web Design 1 1 2

Adventures in Game Design

5 1 6

Comic Creation 0 1 1

17 3 20

“I think girls, they don’t tend to always play video games a lot at home, so therefore, I don’t think they’d be really interested in learning how to make them. It’s just like more of a boy thing. And girls and technology, I guess it’s growing, but it’s still, they’re more, let me play house and play dolls.”- Instructor, Game and Comic Design

Results: Variation in participation

Amount and distribution of technology: group versus individual work

Results: Girls excluded

“Why’d you have to pick me? I could have gone with that Luigi dude…These people aren’t letting me help…Just because I’m a chick, doesn’t mean I can’t do stuff. That’s being sexist. I try telling them. They never listen sir, cause I’m a girl.”– Girl, Grade 10

Results: Boys more active

“If I can’t find something, can you help me find it in here?”—Boy, Grade 9 to girl, Grade 7

“If you stop messing with it, it will end up straight.”--Boy, Grade 9 to girl, Grade 10

-Girls active in different ways -do less complex tasks

Results: Learn new skills

“For the comics…they don't really understand beginning, middle, and end yet. Last week the girl was awesome. And she was funny and she understood that concept. But every other student I've had in that class...I didn't have to teach her about story development. She already had that down. But I had to teach her how to use the tablet to cut out her characters and to draw and use Photoshop and Comic Book Creator.”-Instructor, Comic Creation

Results: Gender Differences

“Cause boys like to play different games than girls, like killing games. And sometimes girls don’t think those killing games are really cool because they don’t like shooting people. But boys, they’re just like obsessed with them. Just like this one kid in my class”—Girl, Grade 3

Results: Career Goals

“Well, I wanna be a video game analyst.”--Boy, Grade 6

“Engineer…I wanna make roller coasters.”—Boy, Grade 5

“I have several things. Musician…surgeon, doctor, and robotic engineer.”--Boy, Grade 8

“I want to be a veterinarian…a zoo keeper and a mom.”—Girl, Grade 3

“Police officer…because I want to protect the city and the people”—Girl, Grade 7

Results: Instructor Support

“He helps us a lot and he’s really nice…if we have questions, he doesn’t get like frustrated…I opened up the program and it was really complicated. And then the teacher just taught me how to do it and now I can like do a lot of things in the program…And even though I can’t do it, he just keeps on trying and trying.”--Boy, Grade 6

Results: Instructor Support

“Jenny! It’s right there, times two. You don’t need to be asking. Look!” Why are you looking at him [volunteer]? He’s not building it, you are.” –Instructor, Robotics

Results: Instructor Support

Robotics instructor did not mediate group conflict Did not encourage all girls to participate Web, game, comic creation: individual

computers, instructor attentive to individual needs

Conclusions

Active role required from instructors and program to overcome these dynamics--enrollment

Need more instructor mediation, especially in group work Girls work better in non-competitive groups and not outnumbered

(Thom, 2001) Girls wait to assume roles, take passive roles—teachers can

assign roles so all can participate (Shanahan, 2006) Some positive results—girls enjoyed class, learned new skills Balance in software that appeals to boys and girls (cf. Thom,

2001, Borg, 1999). Freedom in creativity made more engaged

References

AAUW Educational Foundation Commission on Technology, Gender, and Teacher Education (2000). Tech-savvy: Educating girls in the new computer age. Washington, DC: American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. Borg, A. (1999). What draws women to and keeps women in computing? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Women in science and engineering: Choices for success 869, p. 102–05. NCWIT (2007). Women and Information Technology By the Numbers. Retrieved August 24, 2007, from http://www.ncwit.org. Shanahan, B. (2006). The secrets to increasing females in technology: the secret to increasing females in technology is not to "fix" the girls but to make the technology classroom and profession more appealing to and welcoming of girls. The Technology Teacher 66(2), p. 22-25. Thom, M. (2001). Balancing the equation: Where are women and girls in the science, engineering, and technology? Young women’s progress in science and technology studies. NASSP Bulletin 85(628), p. 6-19.