InclusiveEdu

Background

The Software Engineering (SE) workforce is still male-dominated, and there are still fewer female students graduating from Computer Science/Software Engineering (CS/SE) courses in most countries. Two major reasons are fewer women enrolling in CS/SE courses and a lower percentage of those women who enrolled completing courses. We wanted to investigate the second reason - the experiences of students within the CS/SE education environment to identify key issues that need improvement to increase female student recruitment and completion.

Goal

• Explore students’ perceptions of gender inclusivity in the CS environment, focusing on resources that promote inclusive teaching, learning, and assessment content.
• To identify areas for improvement in the CS classroom and provide insights that can help enhance inclusivity.
• Promote a more diverse and equitable learning environment.

Method

We interviewed 18 CS/SE students to explore their experiences based on Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). We requested they review selected SE education content to understand the perception of gender diversity within the SE education environment.

Project Member

• Dr. Tanjila Kanij (Research Fellow, HumaniSE)
• Jonny PJ Low (Research Assistant, HumaniSE)
• Laurette Professor John Grundy (Lab Director, HumaniSE)

Acknowledgement

This project was supported by Google Award for Inclusion Research Program