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• Lang, Catherine; Lewis, Sue; McKay, Judy  (2005)
  IT courses: the re-emergence of IT as a 'boys' subject area.
  VITTA Conference, Melbourne

  In Australia the proportion of young women selecting a university Information Technology (IT) course is low and has been declining alarmingly in the last few years. This paper will examine the VTAC and Higher Education statistics to show the steady decline in popularity of IT courses since 2000, with young women turning away at a greater rate than young men. Swinburne University has been conducting research into this emerging pattern and this paper will provide an overview of data collected from first year university students on their school experiences with IT, current attitude and use of IT as well as course and career choices. We will explore gender and professional factors underpinning this pattern and offer some food for thought for secondary IT teachers as well as seek their input.

• McKay, Judy; Lang, Catherine; Lewis, Sue (2005)
  Geeks, Girls and IT Courses: Patterns of Participation.
  20th Annual International Conference on Informatics Education & Research (ICIER), Las Vegas, United States

  This paper examines recent trends in declining enrolments in higher education IT courses through a gender lens. Early analysis of a survey on undergraduate students enrolled in IT degree courses at an Australian University of Technology shows a distinct pattern in the parental backgrounds of women in ICT, and also a noticeable variance in the use of IT between female students and male students. While this study supports earlier studies, some of these trends are contrary to prior research in this field and provides further insight into this problematic issue.

• Lewis, Sue; McKay, Judy; Lang, Catherine (2006)
  The Next Wave of Gender Projects in IT Curriculum and Teaching at Universities.
  Proc. Eighth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2006), Hobart, Australia, CRPIT 52: 135-142

  This paper investigates the ‘new‘ crisis in the low numbers of women choosing to study Information and Communication Technology (ICT) courses at universities in Australia and indeed around the western industrialised world. In Australian universities, the spectre of all male ICT classes is becoming more commonplace, particularly in the more technically focused courses. We are hypothesizing that this is not ‘new‘ crisis at all but simply a further consolidation of a pattern that has been evident for 20 years. The range of ‘gender‘ interventions at universities in the 1990´s was primarily directed at the ‘numbers problem‘ and was largely focused on women rather than reviewing and reforming curriculum, teaching and assessment practices as well. Past interventions have failed to impact significantly on the sex stereotype that has emerged in ICT education in most universities. Projects are now being developed that redirect intervention efforts into curriculum and teaching strategies inside ICT faculties. This paper reports on such a ‘gender project‘ in Australia. The Australian context for this issue is explored: there has been very little research in ICT faculties on the impact of curriculum and teaching practices on the recruitment and retention of women in these faculties. We profile the Australian Course Experience (CEQ) data and local survey results from our own technological University which report student views of teaching and learning. Nationally, the ICT teaching area achieved the lowest ratings from graduate students in 2003. At our University, we found a gender gap in the first-year classroom experiences of women and men. Our broad findings suggest the need for a professional review of the very definitions of success in ICT education and support for the proliferation and evaluation of innovative and context driven curricula.

• Lang, Catherine; Lewis, Sue; McKay, Judy  (2006)
  Declining popularity increases lack of diversity in the ICT discipline: extending the discourse of the discipline.
  Proceedings of 17th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, Adelaide 6-8 December 2006

  The number of young people selecting a university Information Technology (IT) course is low and has been declining alarmingly in the last few years. While young women appear to be rejecting the discipline at a greater rate than young men, the declining popularity of IT university courses is a worrying trend that is affecting the culture of the discipline and the industry nationally and internationally. The discourse of the discipline is often focused on curriculum content and industry applications with little or no attention to the type of student who is taking our courses. This paper presents senior secondary school and university enrolment statistics that emphasise a steady decline in popularity of IT courses since 2000. Results of a quantitative survey of over 700 undergraduates are presented to provide a lens into the current student experiences in IT in secondary school, the home and at university. Factors underpinning the declining popularity of the discipline as a course and career option are explored and some thoughts on the future of the discipline are offered.

• Lewis, Sue; Lang, Catherine; McKay, Judy  (2006)
  Women ICT students: the paradox of invisibility and visibility.
  Proceedings of the 10th Australian Women in IT Conference: "partICipaTion one year on" 4-5 December, Adelaide , South Australia

  If half of our young women studying information and communication technologies come from overseas and from single-sex schools, are at an age when they are vulnerable to evaluating themselves negatively even when they are high achievers, have less background experience of computers and less computer confidence from a range of previous gendered experiences at home and school, learn better in a learning centred rather than performance centred classroom, prefer the socio-technical contextual curriculum over the abstract…then why are these findings consistently ignored? Despite numerous studies replicating each other, why are the needs of these women pedagogically invisible?

• Lang, Catherine; McKay, Judy; Lewis, Sue (2007)
  Seven Factors that Influence ICT Student Achievement.
  12th Annual ACM-SIGCSE ITiCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, 25 – 27 June, University of Dundee, Scotland 

  In the process of establishing an audit of student achievement by gender as part of a Women in IT project, seven factors were identified that affect student success. These seven factors had minimal effect when they occurred in isolation within a unit of study, but certain combinations of factors created a learning environment that was detrimental to all students, and in other instances a learning environment that was particularly unfavourable for female students. The impact of these findings has resulted in a set of recommendations to improve the teaching of IT in universities in general.

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