Understanding gender differences in learning and using new technologies

When Professor Brigid Barron asked the high school girls participating in her research study to draw their image of a computer scientist, she was both surprised and troubled by what she saw. The unflattering drawings included overweight, messy and poorly dressed men with adjectives such as “pretentious, disheveled and annoying” written under their images. The boys’ drawings weren’t much better. “I’m bitter and can’t teach others because I’m a genius,” read the quote one boy attributed to his drawing of a computer scientist.

Such negative images, along with other issues ranging from which students develop interest in technological design, where and how that interest is developing, and what excites and interests a broad range of students, are the focus of Barron’s ongoing research on learning ecologies. In one study, funded by a National Science Foundation five-year Career Award grant, she is studying middle and high school students in Silicon Valley. She has recruited a wide range of students including some upper income with parents who work in technology fields, others low income with no home resources or access to technology outside of school.

A second project headed by Barron, named the Clubhouse Study, is exploring the concept of a computer clubhouse where low-income children who have no computer access at home can participate in project-based learning in an after-school setting. This research is also funded by the National Science Foundation as part of a new interdisciplinary Science of Learning Center that Barron co-leads.

The youth project, additionally supported by a LIFE Center grant, involves case studies of ten children who are unusually technologically proficient and have active creative projects ongoing outside of school. These children are being interviewed, as are their peers, families, mentors, and other learning partners, to identify what factors contribute to their interest and success in using technology in creative endeavors.

The Computer Science Curriculum Project, based in Bermuda, has created computer science courses for high school students. Barron is investigating how these courses contribute to students’ knowledge, interest, and future activities at college or in the work world. (Read more about the Bermuda Project at: http://bermuda.stanford.edu/).

Through these various studies, Barron hopes to uncover the obstacles to entering the world of technology and computer science, a world which is still largely populated by males and higher income students. In her research she is focusing on two fundamental questions:

* Who will have the knowledge that will allow them to be designers of new tools and human technological systems?

* How can we increase diversity of those who have the capacity to design?

Increasing the diversity of people entering the field of computer science is the goal of the work, says Barron. The research includes surveys, interviews and having subjects draw pictures in response to questions about their interest in computer science and their perceptions of those in the field. Associated ethnographic work in the Clubhouse follows students across time.

The findings, Barron hopes, will help guide curriculum development and the establishment of programs that encourage a broader range of students to move into technology careers. A more diverse group of designers in turn will help assure a broad range of problems are defined and solved by new technologies.

“You don’t want to simply compare boys and girls,” says Barron. “Instead, you want to ask who is getting interested and why. We are finding that interest is not determined by gender, it’s experience. As more girls begin participating we see that they like doing web design, blogging, journaling, robotics, programming, music and art. But still, if you go to a robotics or technology club, you find it is almost exclusively boys. You have to ask, is it a gender issue or is it classroom climate and environment.”

Even the girls who do engage in the high-technology activities give several reasons it is not easy for them to be full participants, says Barron, who has collected quotes from some of her subjects.

“I’m in introduction to java and I feel out of place,” wrote one high school girl. “Most of the people are guys and they have been programming and playing computer games since they were born.”

One important question Barron wants to answer through her research is how big a factor access and exposure to technology is in determining individual interest. Not surprisingly, she is finding that girls who sign up for programming classes are more likely to grow up in households where one or both parent has an career in technology. Parent encouragement seems to be less important for boys who take the courses anyway.

“We are finding that there are many access points and they are all important for nurturing interest,” she says, pointing to a confluence of distributed resources such as books and tutorials, school classes and clubs, community technology centers, peers who have an interest in computing, and technology resources at home that each play an important role in creating a “learning ecology” that influences a student’s participation in technology and computer science.

In the last two years of the five-year NSF grant Barron’s team will collaborate with teachers to create innovative curriculum and study learning. This will support recommendations based on their findings. They will also propose new mechanisms for bridging the gender and access gaps, such as computer-based community centers, library and other public programs.

“This is a new generation that has access to powerful tools,” she says. “We need a more complicated view of learning that goes beyond just what takes place in school. We need to begin thinking about ways to seed exciting learning opportunities in places that all children can access and design ways to spark interest that will sustain learning both in and out of school.”