ABSTRACT
Recent studies have found that gender gaps in information and communication technology (ICT) skills exist, despite changing gender role expectations for men and women. In this paper we report on survey results from an ongoing longitudinal study of ICT skills which found that--in general-- first-year students were confident in their ICT skills. However, comparison of student skills in four major technology domain areas indicates that there are differences between the male and fale first-year students in levels of confidence. We also report on a second, follow-up study designed to examine the actual ICT skills of the first-year students. This investigation indicates that both male and fale students have greater confidence than actual skill. The study also found that both male and fale students have approximately the same level of actual ICT skills. These findings suggest that fale students, although possessing ICT skills similar to their male counterparts, do not perceive thselves as competent users of technology. These differences in ICT skill confidence have implications for fluency with technology in acadia as well as the recruitment and retention of women in the Computer and Information Sciences.
- The Association of College and Research Libraries (2000). Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Chicago, IL: The Association of College and Research Libraries.Google Scholar
- B, S. L. (1993). The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
- Busch, T. (1995). Gender differences in self-efficacy and attitudes toward computers. Journal of Educational Computing Research 12(12), 147--163.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Cann, A. & Palmer, S. (1986). Children's Assumptions About the Generalizability of Sex-Typed Abilities. Sex Roles, 15(9-10), 551--557.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Colley, A., Hill, F., Hill, J., & Jones, A. (1995). Gender Effects in the Stereotyping of Those with Different Kinds of Computing Experience. Journal of Educational Computing Research 12 (1), 19--27.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Cross, K. P. & Steadman, M. H. (1996). Classroom Research: Implenting the Scholarship of Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey_Bass.Google Scholar
- Dholakia, R. R., Dholadia, N., & Kshetri, N. (2003). Gender and Internet use. In H. Bidgoli (Ed.), The Internet Encyclopedia. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
- Gilmour, H. (1999). What Girls Want: The Intersections of Leisure and Power in Fale Computer Game Play. In M. Kinder (Ed.), Kids' Media Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
- Goodfellow, M., & Wade, B., (in press). The Digital Divide and First-Year Students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice.Google Scholar
- Hanson, K. (2002). Space Aliens? Women, ICTs, and Gender-Equitable Electronic Resources. Retrieved April 20, 2005 from http://www2.edc.org/GDI/publications_SR/publications/SpaceAliens.pdf.Google Scholar
- Irani, L. (2004). Understanding Gender and Confidence in CS Course Culture. In Proceedings of the 35th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Norfolk, Virginia, USA, March 03-07, 2004). SIGCSE '04. ACM Press, New York, NY, 195--199. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Liff, S. & Shepherd, A. (2004). An Evolving Gender Digital Divide? Retrieved April 22, 2005 from http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/resources/publications/IB2all.pdf.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Shashaani, L. (1994). Gender-Differences in Computer Experience and its Influence on Computer Attitudes. Journal of Educational Computing Research 11(4), 347--367.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Stone, J. A., Hoffman, M. E., Madigan, E. M., and Vance, D. R. (2006). Technology Skills of Incoming Freshman: Are First-Year Students Prepared?. Journal of Computing in Small Colleges. 21(6) (Jun. 2006), 117--121. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Vesgo, Jay. (2005). "Interest in CS as a Major Drops Among Incoming Freshmen" Retrieved August 1, 2006 from http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may05/vegso.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Gender, perceptions, and reality: technological literacy among first-year students
Recommendations
Gender, perceptions, and reality: technological literacy among first-year students
Recent studies have found that gender gaps in information and communication technology (ICT) skills exist, despite changing gender role expectations for men and women. In this paper we report on survey results from an ongoing longitudinal study of ICT ...
The Influence of Gender-Ethnic Intersectionality on Gender Stereotypes about IT Skills and Knowledge
One line of investigation in attempting to better understand the gender imbalance in the information technology (IT) field is to examine gender stereotypes about the skills and knowledge in the IT profession. A survey of 4046 university students in the ...
Intersections of gender and sexual minority status
The present study refined existing bullying literature by examining differences in risk of three types of bullying victimization (offline only, cyberbullying only, and co-occurring victimization) for four different gender-sexual minority status groups ...
Comments