Female Involvement in Information Technology Degrees: Perception, Expectation and Enrolment
The aim of this research was to identify the social, marketing and academic factors that effect the expectations and enrolment of students in university degrees. Of particular interest were the factors that differentiate female and male perceptions of Information Technology degrees from degrees in other discipline areas. Multidimensional scaling was used to analyse and compare high-school student subject dissimilarity ratings with perceptions of discipline areas at Southern Cross University. It was found that females tend to avoid information technology degrees, not because such degrees are considered difficult, but because they do not offer scope for teamwork and social interaction.
Nerd Work: attractors and barriers perceived by students entering the IT field
The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that attract as well as discourage students who display an initial interest in IT careers. Factors influencing students one way or the other may include media images of IT, role models, gender, and age. The study proposes to investigate these factors by focusing on the first programming course that is standard in many IT curricula. Demographic factors of students who enroll and either withdraw, pass, or fail the course will be analyzed, and then the same students will be surveyed to examine in greater depth their perceptions, both negative and positive, about IT careers and IT professionals. The results will provide educators and practitioners with information about myths that students hold that need to be dispelled, as well as the possible need to convey more realistic perspectives on the breadth and variety of IT jobs. Identification of these factors can help in recruiting as well as retaining a greater number of qualified students and ultimately increasing the supply of qualified IT workers.
Science Buddies: Advancing Informal Science Education
An innovative nonprofit enables scientists to present inspiring project ideas based on their own research to K–12 students, parents, and teachers. Every year, about 10 million North American kindergarten through high school (K–12) students complete a science project. What part of these science projects is the most difficult? Formulating a hypothesis? Designing an experiment? Analyzing data? The answer: None of the above. Science Buddies (www.sciencebuddies.org)—a nonprofit developer of software, content, and other resources for informal science and engineering education—found that students have the most difficulty selecting a topic and doing background research to inform their work. Meanwhile, scientists and engineers interested in advising and inspiring students often do not have a means to connect with them (see the first figure). To Science Buddies, these difficulties presented an ideal challenge, and we applied a business methodology to address them, viewing our users as customers and our output as products.