Research
Digital Divas
The Digital Divas project is funded from 2009 -2011 through the Australian Research Council (ARC)
Linkage Scheme.
Swinburne Women in ICT are employed as Expert Divas, and spend time in the secondary school
classroom with school girls. Digital Divas build girls' ICT skills and confidence and increases girls'
motivation to continue studying ICT.
Go to Digital Divas website
History of WICT
The Women in ICT group at Swinburne was created in 2006, financially supported by a Strategic Initiative Fund Grant provided by the university. The program created a strong and supportive community of women in the faculty. This grant enabled academics to research the under-representation of women in ICT, a phenomena that exists world-wide.
The research papers and journal articles listed here were the outcome of this project.
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Lang, Catherine; Meyer, Denny; Niner, Sarah; McKay, Judy; and Lewis, Sue (2009)
Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 25, no. 1 (2009), pp. 305-320
An assessment of student achievement according to gender in core units of study of a Faculty
of Information and Communication Technology program tested four hypotheses. The first of these related
to the role-model effect of female academics; the second related to the advantages of formal education
qualifications of academics; the third to the application of contextualized curricula, and the fourth to
the use of a variety of assessment modes. Correlation and regression analysis on the data set indicated that
the presence of two of these factors can significantly improve the pass rate of female students while having
a benign effect on the pass rate of male students. It is suggested that information systems faculties pay close
attention to gender diversity of their teaching faculty, particularly if their female student cohort is less
than one in five in a unit of study. It also gives substance to the need or preference for university lecturers
having education qualifications. This study needs to be replicated in other information systems faculties and
schools to verify this finding.
See publication details
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Lang, Catherine; McKay, Judy; Lewis, Sue (2007)
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.
See publication details
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Lewis, Sue; Lang, Catherine; McKay, Judy (2006)
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?
See publication details
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Lang, Catherine; Lewis, Sue; McKay, Judy (2006)
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.
See publication details
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Lewis, Sue; McKay, Judy; Lang, Catherine (2006)
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.
See publication details
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McKay, Judy; Lang, Catherine; Lewis, Sue (2005)
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.
See publication details
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Lang, Catherine; Lewis, Sue; McKay, Judy (2005)
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.
See publication details
