Elsevier

Computers & Education

Volume 54, Issue 4, May 2010, Pages 1117-1126
Computers & Education

Education and career pathways in Information Communication Technology: What are schoolgirls saying?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2009.10.018Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper highlights key themes which emerged from schoolgirls’ responses to focus group questions regarding perceptions of Information Communication Technology (ICT) subjects in the Queensland senior secondary curriculum, primarily, Information Processing Technology (IPT) and Information Technology Systems (ITS). The 2006 focus group interviews comprised one component of a 3-year research project seeking to identify factors that deter females from ICT education and career pathways. Focus group data reveal that one barrier to selection of advanced ICT options was girls’ experience of junior secondary school ICT subjects which had been typically delivered by teachers with limited expertise and constituted by mundane, repetitive tasks. Further, while Non Takers of senior ICT subjects acknowledged the pervasiveness of ICTs in the workplace, they were disinterested in a specialized ICT career path. Hence, rather than undertake advanced offerings of little relevance to career aspirations, Non Takers perceived that they could continue to hone their skills on a needs basis and, indeed, were routinely and purposefully using computers in their home settings. A lack of understanding of the different foci of IPT (i.e. programming and databases) and ITS (i.e. multimedia and web design) was evident among Non Takers, with many singularly associating senior ICT subjects with programming and other highly technical skills. Both Non Takers and Takers (who in the context of the focus groups were largely Takers of ITS) expressed an aversion to programming. It was the creative aspects of ITS which had attracted Takers to the subject and they were, in fact, enjoying its authentic, problem-based design tasks. Many Non Takers responded positively to interviewers’ descriptions of ITS; the subject’s broader appeal is evidenced in growing enrolments since its 2000 introduction in the senior curriculum. Findings indicate that schoolgirls’ participation in ICT pathways may be well promoted through subjects that position and call for students to engage with ICTs as ‘enablers’ in diverse, meaningful and creative human contexts.

Introduction

The ICT industry is ‘hydra-like, difficult to define and highly dynamic’ (Timms, Lankshear, Anderson, & Courtney, 2008, p. 156). Rapid technological development of ICTs and resulting changes in skill requirements present ‘a complex, moving target’ for policy-makers and educational and professional training providers with respect to delivering the skills needed for a knowledge-intensive society (European Commission, 2007, p. 5). As ICTs become increasingly pervasive, a discrete ICT sector is less and less identifiable (European Union ICT Task Force, 2006). For example, in Australia, one-quarter of ICT job placements from November, 2006 to March, 2007 were in ‘Government, Defence and Public Safety’ sectors; one-fifth of placements were absorbed by ‘Financial and Insurance Services’ (Coulter, 2007). Unlike the 1980s and 1990s where the main focus was on hiring technical expertise alone, it is now advantageous for ICT professionals to have strong business, project management, problem-solving, negotiation, communication and interpersonal skills (Coonan, 2005, Coulter, 2007). The rapid rate of ICT integration and innovation places increased onus on employers to provide ongoing professional development and training as well as educators to conceptualise the ICT repertoire more broadly, including generic and transferable competencies rather than an exclusive focus on acquiring technical skills which may become obsolete in a short period of time (Meredyth, Russell, Blackwood, Thomas, & Wise, 1999).

The European Union ICT Task Force (2006, p. 5) highlighted increased capabilities of the next generation of ICTs where ‘seamless broadband communication networks span from the personal area to the regional and global area, permitting the delivery of ever-higher volumes of data and services anywhere, anytime’. ICTs are critical to ongoing innovation and economic welfare:

They are pervasive, embedded and ubiquitous. They have a major impact on new product creation, new product features, process improvement and the creation of systems for services. The technologies underpin all other technology development, are essential to the competitiveness of all industries, facilitate service industries, upgrade efficiencies in commodity industries, and seed new industries (Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, 2000, p. 4).

ICTs are enabling in other ways as well; they are essential tools in addressing national and global challenges in education, health, demographic change, security and environmental management (Department of Communications, Information Technology & the Arts (DCITA), 2005).

An extensive empirical research base documents disproportionately low levels of female participation in ICT education and careers in a number of post-industrialised nations (Anderson, Klein, & Lankshear, 2005). This trend persists in spite of marked increases in overall female participation in labour force and higher education, evidence of ICT skill shortages, as well as, investment in research and initiatives which seek to specifically redress the gender imbalance in ICT. Given the key role of ICTs in post-industrial, knowledge-based economies and societies, it is important that industry and government are able to draw upon a rich talent pool (DCITA, 2005). It is apparent that females represent a key untapped resource.

Declining numbers of ICT commencements, alongside potential mismatch between supply and demand of specific ICT skills, pose significant labour force challenges to Australian ICT employers across industry and government sectors (Queensland Government, 2006). Table 1 reveals that Australian higher education commencements in ‘Information Technology (IT)’, particularly that of females, fell in the years between 2002 and 2006, in spite of continued growth in overall and female higher education commencements and even some gains in female participation in the heavily male-dominated field of ‘Engineering and Related Technologies’. Female IT commencements for 2006 were well below half of those for 2002. In 2006, females comprised only 19.1% of IT commencements—with slightly stronger representation proportionally at the postgraduate than undergraduate level (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2008)—down from 24.9% in 2002 (Table 1). This was in spite of the fact that females made up 55.3% of higher education commencements across ‘All Broad Fields’ for that year (Table 1).

Marked female under-representation in ICT-related courses at the higher education level is also evident in other post-industrial nations. In 2002, the National Audit Office (p. 7) reported that 28.5% of ‘Mathematical Sciences and Computer Science’ students and 15.0% of ‘Engineering and Technology’ students in England were female. In the USA, females were awarded 23.8% of higher education degrees in the ‘Computer Sciences’ for 2005, with greater proportional representation at the postgraduate than undergraduate level (Table 2). Analysis of time series data (National Science Board, 2008) confirm that ‘many of the gains made in US women’s formal computing education achieved by the mid-1980s were lost in subsequent years’ (McGrath Cohoon & Aspray, 2006, p. ix). Table 2 shows a 21.9% decline in total ‘Computer Sciences’ graduates in the decade from 1985 to 1995, impacting females to a greater extent than males. Losses were wholly incurred at the undergraduate level where numbers of female Bachelor’s graduates fell by more than one half in that decade. While ground has been subsequently regained—primarily between 1995 and 2000—the number of female Bachelor’s graduates in the ‘Computer Sciences’ for 2005 had not yet eclipsed the comparable figure for 1985.

Gender imbalance is also strongly evident in the ICT industry. In 2007, Australia had approximately 398,500 persons working in what the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) classified as an ICT occupation according to the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO). These persons were employed across all sectors of the economy, representing 3.8% of the total labour force (ABS, 2007). Table 3.1 reveals that females comprised well under one-fifth (17.4%) of Australia’s ICT labour force for 2007. The majority of the females classified within ICT Groups 1 and 2 were employed as ‘Computing Professionals’ in that year. While the proportion of females relative to the total number of employees in the Australian ICT sector has changed little since 1999—ranging from 15.0% to 17.4%—percentage growth of female numbers over the most recent period (2005–2007) outstripped that of overall ICT workers for both ICT Groups (Table 3.2).

The USA accounts for approximately 30% of world ICT supply (European Union ICT Task Force, 2006, p. 3). According to von Hellens and Nielsen (2001, p. 47), while females represented 40% of the 1986 ‘technology-sector’ workforce in the USA, that proportion fell to 29% in 1999. Figures from Women in the Labour Force Databook (US Department of Labor, 2008) indicate that, in 2007, 25.9% of persons employed within ‘Computer and Information Systems Managers’ and ‘Computer and Mathematical Occupations’ categories were female (Table 4). This proportion represented well over one million women; 87.1% of whom were classified in the latter category. Table 4 shows that numbers of female employees fluctuated between years during the period, 2004–2007, with eroding female proportional representation in the face of overall growth. It will be interesting to assess the impact of the 2008–2009 economic downturn on both female and overall participation in this combined sector of the US labour force.

In the UK, as the IT industry experienced recession in early 2000, the number of males declined but nothing akin to what Griffiths and Moore (2006) described as the ‘haemorrhaging’ of female professionals from the sector. Female ‘Computing Professionals’ declined by almost one half from a 1999 peak of 100,892 females to 2003 when 53,759 women were working in that capacity. While in 1999, over one-fifth of UK’s ‘Computing Professionals’ were female, the figure had fallen to 12.1% in 2003 (Platman & Taylor, 2004, p. 8). The UK Department of Trade and Industry (2005, p. 17) noted that females were found disproportionately in lower-level positions in the ‘IT industry’, similarly reporting 2003 data showing females comprising only 12% of ‘Software Professionals’, 11% of ‘IT Strategy and Planning Professionals’ and 15% of ‘ICT Managers’.

Education and labour force participation data for Australia, the USA and the UK, presented thus far, reveal declining or statically low proportions of females relative to total numbers in the field in most instances. In the Australian context, expanding female and overall participation in ICT occupations for the most recent period (2005–2007) despite declining higher education IT commencements in preceding years (2002–2006) suggests that there are multiple entry points to ICT occupations. It is clear that strategic initiatives need to attract females at varying points of entry and then retain and progress them once in the ICT labour force.

In order to better reflect the changing nature of today’s ICT careers, senior industry, education and government representatives supported moves to improve the statistical classification of ICT occupations at a 2005 Australian National ICT Summit (DCITA, 2005). Precise data regarding ICT occupational and skills specialisations as well as the extent of current and projected shortages has been difficult to obtain in Australia (Queensland Government, 2006). In 2006, the federal government funded the development of SkillsMatch, a National ICT Skills Monitoring System. SkillsMatch compiles data from leading recruitment companies according to the 2006 Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) which recently replaces ASCO employed in Table 3.1, Table 3.2 (Coulter, 2007; Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, 2006). SkillsMatch affords governments and policy-makers, ‘access to real-time data, for the first time, on the supply and demand of ICT skills and other key workforce issues’ (Lacy, 2007). Importantly, information which better reflects the nature and diversity of ICT occupations as well as skills shortages can afford women and young persons greater awareness of the real opportunities across sectors and fields (DCITA, 2005).

Newmarch, Taylor-Steele, and Cumpston (2000) call for multifaceted, long-term approaches to address barriers to Australian female participation in formal ICT education and career pathways. The aforementioned Australian ICT Summit (DCITA, 2005) identified broad avenues to enhance participation in ICT pathways including raising the national profile of ICT careers, creating flexible and attractive work environments, providing innovative and inclusive training and curricula as well as informed careers advice at all levels of education (DCITA, 2005). This reach is consistent with recommendations made by Millar and Jagger (2001) in their final report based upon systemic review and analysis of female participation in ICT courses and careers across the UK, the USA, Canada, Ireland, Taiwan and Spain. Such strategies will necessitate partnerships between multiple stakeholders and change to practices and perceptions across sectors and society at large.

The current paper details key themes which emerged from Queensland schoolgirls’ responses to focus group questions regarding perceptions of ICT subjects in the senior secondary curriculum. The focus groups in companion with a ‘Girls and Information Communication Technology’ survey comprised the school-based component of an Australian Research Council funded project undertaken by James Cook University (JCU) researchers in collaboration with Education Queensland (EQ) and industry partner, Technology One. The project also included an online survey of Australian women employed in an ICT capacity within specialist firms or dispersed throughout other industry and government sectors. Given the reach of the project, one of its primary aims was to ‘identify possibilities and priorities for cooperative, informed cross-sector strategic responses’ to the low rates of female participation in ICT education and career pathways (Timms, Courtney, & Anderson, 2006, p. 4).

The pen-and-paper survey, conducted the year prior to the focus group interviews, involved 1453 participants in Years 11 and 12 across 26 Queensland State and non-government schools. The survey participants provided information pertaining to factors associated with decisions about whether or not to include Information Processing Technology (IPT) and Information Technology Systems (ITS) in their senior programs, raising pertinent themes to address in greater depth in the focus group interviews (Anderson, Lankshear, Timms, & Courtney, 2008). Survey participants were classified as Takers or Non Takers, with Takers undertaking either IPT or ITS, or both subjects and Non Takers, enrolled in neither subject.

Takers (N = 1322; 91%) responded to positively framed statements (e.g. “I am very interested in computers”) and Non Takers (N = 131; 9%), negatively framed statements (e.g. “I am not interested in computers”) on a 5-point Likert scale from ‘Strongly Disagree’ to ‘Strongly Agree’. Responses were reverse coded for analysis purposes (Anderson, Lankshear, et al., 2008). The bank of statements addressed many of the reasons put forth in the literature for girls’ non-participation in advanced computing classes and identified in Anderson et al., 2005, Anderson, Lankshear, et al., 2008. Detailed results from the survey were reported in Anderson, Lankshear, et al., 2008, Anderson, Timms, et al., 2008, Timms et al., 2006.

Statistically significant differences between Takers and Non Takers were found regarding: “The subject is interesting/boring”; “I am very interested/not interested in computers”; and “The subject would be/would not be helpful to me in my chosen career path” (Anderson, Timms, et al., 2008, p. 188). Anderson, Timms, et al. (2008, p. 190) reported that:

Non Takers considered that advanced computing subjects were not relevant to their future careers. Furthermore, they considered the subjects were boring and had no interest in computers. This attitude contrasts sharply with that of Takers.

According to Anderson, Lankshear, et al. (2008, p. 1309), analysis of girls’ responses in the pilot study for the survey had already indicated that ‘the reason most girls do not study ICT subjects concerns the same factors that influence some girls to study them’. Hence, ‘different populations of girls have the opposite perceptions of the same phenomena’ (Anderson, Lankshear, et al., 2008, p. 1309). The JCU research team anticipated that the focus groups would ‘shed light on the polarized views’ held by Takers and Non Takers of senior ICT subjects (Timms et al., 2006, p. 7).

Section snippets

Methodology

Eight focus group interviews were conducted at four Queensland schools from March through to May, 2006. Two focus group interviews were conducted at a large state secondary school in Brisbane (the States’ capital and largest city located in its southeast); two, at a private girls’ school in Toowoomba (a regional centre in South East Queensland); two, at a large state secondary school in Cairns (a large regional city in Far North Queensland) and two at a state secondary school in Atherton (a

Queensland schoolgirls’ participation in IPT and ITS

In 2007, 33.2% of ITS students and 17.8% of IPT students were female (Table 5.1). The QSA includes IPT and ITS in its ‘Technologies’ suite of Authority subjects alongside Aerospace Studies, Engineering Technology, Graphics, and Technology Studies. Results in Authority subjects can count in the calculation of students’ Overall and Field Positions, the most common selection devices used by the tertiary sector (QSA, 2009a). The main focus of IPT is the design and implementation of information and

Conclusion and view forward

Barriers to female participation in ICT subjects in the senior secondary school, as identified in this paper, arise through girls’ own experiences of junior computing subjects which, for Non Takers and Takers alike, typically amounted to little more than a series of mundane, repetitive tasks facilitated by teachers who lacked necessary expertise and passion. This highlights a need for up-skilling of existing teachers; attracting individuals with ICT qualifications and experience to the

Acknowledgements

Neil Anderson, Colin Lankshear, Lyn Courtney and Carolyn Timms.

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