– Girls’ self-reported interest in enrolling in an introductory computer science course was significantly increased when the classroom environment was altered so that it did not fit high school students’ current stereotypes of computer science. In contrast, boys’ self-reported interest in computer science did not differ across the two classrooms.
– A computer science classroom that did not project current computer science stereotypes caused girls, but not boys, to express more interest in taking computer science than a classroom that made these stereotypes salient. The gender difference was mediated by girls’ lower sense of belonging in the course, even beyond the effects of negative stereotype concerns, expectations of success, and utility value.
– Girls’ lower sense of belonging could be traced to lower feelings of fit with computer science stereotypes. Individual differences in fit with stereotypes predicted girls’ belonging and interest in a stereotypical, but not a nonstereotypical, classroom.
– High-school girls’ interest in enrolling in classes can thus be influenced by the design of classrooms, providing evidence for the ability of classroom environments to signal who belongs.
– Girls who felt that they fit the computer science stereotypes reported greater interest in enrolling in the stereotypical classroom, but there was no relationship for the nonstereotypical classroom.
– Experiment 2 revealed that girls reported more interest in enrolling in an introductory computer science course when the physical environment was nonstereotypical compared with stereotypical. In contrast, boys’ self-reported interest in the course did not depend on the classroom environment.
– Girls may avoid computer science courses because current prevailing stereotypes of the field signal to them that they do not belong. However, providing them with an educational environment that does not fit current computer science stereotypes increases their interest in computer science courses and
could provide grounds for interventions to help reduce gender disparities in computer science enrollment.
2016 - Computing Whether She Belongs: Stereotypes Undermine Girls’ Interest and Sense of Belonging in Computer Science
In Experiment 1, they investigated effects of stereotypical and nonstereotypical classroom environments on high-school girls’ interest in enrolling in introductory computer science courses. The researchers included a premeasure to examine students’ feelings about computer science before they learned about the environment of the classroom. This allowed them to assess whether it was the stereotypical or the nonstereotypical environment that influenced girls’ interest.
Participants were 165 students at two high schools in the Northwestern United States. Students were recruited by using an opt-out information letter to parents, allowing for a high participation rate (at the public school, 85% of eligible students participated across Experiments 1-2 manipulated classroom environments using two photographs created for this experiment. In designing these photographs, they decorated a small university classroom (i.e., 12 desks) using objects either identified as stereotypical or nonstereotypical of computer science in previous research. The stereotypical objects were Star Wars/Star Trek items, electronics, software, tech magazines, computer parts, video games,
computer books, and science fiction books. The nonstereotypical objects were nature pictures, art pictures, water bottles, pens, a coffee maker, lamps, general magazines, and plants.
Participants read an introduction stating, “We are interested in your thoughts about different potential classes you could take in high school. You will see different classrooms to get an idea of what they look like, and then you will be asked for your thoughts on those classes.” Before they were told about the classrooms, participants first answered a series of premeasure questions including two items assessing their interest in enrolling in a potential high-school “Introduction to Computer Science” course, four items assessing feelings of belonging in this course, and four items assessing concerns about negative stereotypes in this course.
Participants then read, “Next, you will be looking at two classrooms that are being used to teach this course: Classroom A and Classroom B. Even if you are not sure you would take a computer science class, please give us your opinion about your preference for one classroom over the other.” They were given more information about the two computer science courses (including photos of the two classrooms), and then answered the same questions about interest in enrolling, belonging, and concerns about negative stereotypes specifically for each course.
The information stated that both courses covered the same material (computer science) and were identical in terms of amount of homework, teacher gender (male), and gender proportion of
students (50% male, 50% female). These were controlled to examine the effect of stereotypes above and beyond other assumptions they evoked, such as gender proportion or amount of homework.
Participants then saw photos of the two classrooms.
In the second experiment, three changes were made to the procedures used in Experiment 1 to test the generalizability of the effects. First, they controlled for two factors shown to be important for girls’ career aspirations in STEM: expectations of success and value placed on computer science. They examined whether belonging plays a critical role in shaping students’ enrollment interest, above and beyond perceptions of their ability and how much they value computer science. Second, they used a different manipulation of classroom environment by describing the classrooms to students rather than showing photos. This manipulation ensured that effects were not because of something specific about the photos and generalized to other ways that students come to learn about stereotypes
(e.g., hearing a description of the classroom). Third, they used a between-subjects design to examine whether exposure to a single classroom would affect girls’ interest. This allowed us to capture the
experiences of students who do not have multiple computer science courses to choose from. Participants were 104 students at the same public high school as Experiment 1.
Participants read a description of a single computer science course. The teacher was randomly assigned to be male or female. To ensure that teachers were seen as competent and therefore adequate role models, the teacher was described as having a graduate degree in computer science and years of experience teaching this course. Students were then randomly assigned to read one of two descriptions of the classroom, which contained a list of objects that were either stereotypical or nonstereotypical of computer science (thus, both teacher gender and classroom environment were manipulated between-subjects).