TechMate
TechMate is being developed at TU Dublin as a best practice toolkit driving sustainable acceleration towards gender equality in the technology disciplines in Higher Education Intuitions (HEI’s).
What is the present situation?
Recent economic developments confirmed that technology is key to any business, especially considering the wide acceptance of remote work and requirements for its technical facilitation. Currently market is unable to fill all the gaps for relevant specialists.
In 2020,
of ICT specialists in the EU were women
In 2019,
of women who get into tech drop by the age of 35
In 2017/2018,
of students who entered third level ICT courses in Ireland were women
In 2018,
of students who entered third level ICT courses in the EU were women
It is well known and yet still unchanged that women are dramatically underrepresented in technical fields. In 2020, only 18.5% of all ICT specialists in the European Union were women. Even more, a US report by Accenture states that half of all the women who get into tech drop by the age of 35. This phenomenon is often referred to as the “leaky pipeline”, when women progressively evaporate from the field throughout different stages of education or careers.
But there also is comparatively small number of female students who enter computing disciplines at a higher educational level in the first place. In Ireland only 14.8%, and in the EU 17% of all ICT related course students are women. The goal of our work is to increase these numbers for educational institutions and get one step closer towards sustainable gender equality in the field.
Why is there a gender gap?
There is no universal answer to this, as local and cultural aspects can play a role. Research confirms, however, that in secondary school education worldwide girls are as capable as boys in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines. Common reasons named for the gender gap in technology fields include stereotypes, loss of confidence, family and caring matters, lack of sense of belonging, cultural influence.
How do we address the issue?
Our toolkit is aiming to assist you as an educational institution, to select and guide through the implementation of the most suitable actions for increasing the number of women as well as help retaining them in your computing classes.
What is the TechMate Toolkit about?
We are in the process of developing a visual representation of an artefact that lists research driven techniques as well as provides with detailed guidance on how to implement them. These techniques (that we called ACTIONS) can be suitable to your local situation, based on resources available at your institution and the level of efforts preferred.
One of the significant contributions is the proposed categorisation of actions on how to recruit and retain women in computing disciplines. This research was based on over 350 publications from all over the world. Materials in different languages as well as valuable sources outside of the common academic locations were assessed (e.g., Minerva Informatics Equality Award submissions). Click on each of the subcategories below to learn more.
TechMate Action Categories
Admission Procedures
Entrants Quota for Women
The strength of numbers: Strategies to include women into computer science. Lagesen, 2007.
Women Only Bachelor Courses
Staff Recruitment
Female Faculty Recruitment
Appoint a dedicated project lead for a longer-term initiative
Inclusion of women to ICT engineering–lessons learned. Lagesen, Pettersen, Berg, 2021.
Cultural Change
Family friendly study schedule
(Reference Juliane Siegeris. 2021. Mehr Diversität durch Mono-Edukation. In Fachtag. Hochschuldid. Informatik, Vol. 9. HDI, Hagen, Berlin, 65–74.
Recognition of outstanding female students with awards
(Reference: C. Botella, S. Rueda, E. López-Iñesta, and P. Marzal. 2019. Gender diversity in STEM disciplines: A multiple factor problem. Entropy 21, 1 (2019), 30.
Curriculum Based
Hybrid courses including modules from other disciplines
Game Development
Growing a computer science program with a focus on game development. Roden & LeGrand, 2013.
Operating a computer science game degree program. Zyda, Lacour, Swain, 2008.
Delivery Techniques
Flipped Classroom Model
Rethinking CS0 to Improve Performance and Retention. Albarakati, DiPippo, Fay-Wolfe, 2021.
Visual Programming
Computer-game construction: A gender-neutral attractor to Computing Science. Carbonaro et al., 2010.
Evaluating the effectiveness of a new instructional approach. Moskal, Lurie, Cooper, 2004.
Not mixing novice learners with experience learners
Personalised messages to students with exam results/encouragements
TAs
Use of existing students as TAs
Girls4STEM: Gender diversity in STEM for a sustainable future. Benavent et al., 2020.
Diversified TA team in terms of gender and race
Rethinking CS0 to Improve Performance and Retention. Albarakati, DiPippo, Fay-Wolfe, 2021.
Role Models
Current students as role models to prospective students
Fostering High School Girls’ Interest and Attainment in Computer Science. Gutica, 2021.
Meetings/informal meetings between students and their role models regularly
How computer science at CMU is attracting and retaining women. Frieze & Quesenberry, 2019.
Mentors
Match students with mentors based on common interests
Engage male and female mentors
Advertising
Gender neutral advertising
Promote state of the art computing equipment
Growing a computer science program with a focus on game development. Roden & LeGrand, 2013.
Promote good gender ratios
Industry Engagement
Invite industry partners to university course teaching
Explorations in computing: Could this be the key to retention? Ott, 2014.
Coding clubs supervised by industry partners
International Placements Opportunities
Early work/internship placement
Events
Mid-year technology camps for female school students
Outreach introductory programming classes for school girls
Policy
Policy includes actions that could require support at higher level, and also potentially need a structural or policy change, as well as allocation of resources at organisational level.
Pedagogy
Pedagogy includes actions that are related to teaching of computer science. These types of actions could be implemented by an academic within the school or department and do not necessarily require policy changes.
Influence & Support
Influence & Support, includes actions associated with ways to influence female students to choose computing at university level. There is a lot of evidence that role models and mentors have a strong impact in this area.
Promotion & Engagement
Promotion & Engagement, includes initiatives to promote computer science and technology-based courses.
One of the significant contributions to date is the proposed categorisation of research driven actions on how to recruit and retail female students into computing education. This research was based on over 350 publications from all over the world, included materials in different languages as well as valuable sources outside of the common academic locations (e.g. Minerva Informatics Equality Award submissions). The following categories and subcategories have emerged from this work and are presented above.
Where do we talk about the research?
Contacts
Alina Berry
Sarah Jane Delany
Funders
Partners
