Gender and Technology in the Liberal Arts: Aptitudes, Attitudes, and Skills Acquisition

Abstract

Executive SummaryStudies in gender have offered many reasons for the differing attitudes and skill levels that male and female undergraduate students possess when it comes to learning technology skills. Male and female students have differing learning styles influenced by such experiential factors as biology, historical inequalities, inconsistent political rights, and problems of sociological constructions. Studies such as Clegg and Trayhurn's (2000) in the United Kingdom (UK), Crews and Butterfield's (2003) in the United States, the European Union's (EU) the Women in Technology North West's surveys (2004), and the World Bank's research (2005) demonstrate that the gender gap is a reality when it comes to technology training, in most institutions and countries, both developed and developing. The gender gap persists despite many efforts to curb the effects of institutional and social inequality. However, the gender gap is different in each context and must be contextualized in each situation; in fact, the gender gap as a term conflates several different arguments and may indeed contribute to misunderstandings of the issue.In May 2003, the Technology Edge Research Project completed a major study of undergraduate liberal arts students and their attitudes concerning the technology skills that they have gained during university. This report builds upon the findings of the Technology Edge Research Project's preliminary needs assessment; this research was documented in a previous article in the Journal of Information and Technology Education (JITE) entitled, "Providing a Technology Edge for Liberal Arts Students" (Butler, Chao, & Ryan, 2003).Elaborating on our findings as they specifically related to gender issues, this paper addresses the following research questions: 1) Is there a gender gap between final year male and female undergraduate students when it comes to information technology (IT) skills?2) What are the differences in attitudes and self-reported skill levels of final year male and female undergraduate students, in both the arts and non-arts? What is the relationship between these attitudes and measured aptitudes?3) How can educators address these differences, when they develop and deploy materials designed to improve IT skills?

Computer‐mediated discussion, self‐efficacy and gender

“…Lee (2002) identified three popular gender issues in the existing literature: (1) the dynamic of social interaction including its purposes and style, (2) motivation factors, and (3) expression frequency and style, discussion and feedback. Like Bulter et al (2005) and Campbell (1999), Lee found that the gender gap towards technology use was related to learning styles, which, in turn, are influenced by factors such as biology, historical inequalities, inconsistent political rights and problems of sociological constructions. In terms of online learning, gender is also related to reading and writing preferences which may suggest that females might find online discussions more motivating and enjoyable than males.…”

“…Differential gender attitudes towards the use of computer technology have been discussed for years (eg, Anderson & Haddad, 2005; Bulter, Ryan & Chao, 2005; DeNeui & Dodge, 2006; Karma, 1994; Ory, Bullock & Burnaska, 1997; Wilson, Kickul & Marlino, 2007), and likewise have become a focus in teacher education (Sanders, 1997). In early days, females tended to express negative attitudes and less confidence towards technology use when engaged in computer‐mediated learning environments (eg, Dambrot, 1985; Gutek & Bikson, 1985; Neuman, 1991).…”

“…Interestingly, several current gender studies involving online learning show a reversal. In a large scale survey study, Bulter et al (2005) reported that females demonstrated greater career‐related information technology (IT) skills than males on basic computer skills, spreadsheet programmes, database programs and website creation. In addition, not only did the female students in the study demonstrate greater IT skills than the males, but they placed higher value on those skills, demonstrated greater use of computer‐mediated platforms (eg, Blackboard™) for learning and outperformed males in academic achievement in the online setting (DeNeui & Dodge, 2006).…”

Teaching basic spreadsheet skills with peer tutoring

“…We repeated this analysis controlling for student characteristics. Since Butler et al (2005) report student gender differences in computer skills, we included a Gender dummy equal to 1, if a student is female; 0, otherwise. We used the student cumulative grade point average (GPA) prior to taking the finance course to proxy for student academic ability.…”

<p>Technology Skill Development Among Education Majors</p>

“…Koroghlanian and Brinkerhoff (2008) found significant differences indicating that males have higher digital literacy than do females. Males also scored significantly higher on an assessment of several digital skills (Butler, Ryan, & Chao, 2005).…”