Gender and black boxes in the programming curriculum

ABSTRACT

This paper summarizes the results of an investigation into whether women and men have different (concrete and abstract) styles of programming, and whether the standard computing curriculum is therefore biased against women. The theory underpinning the hypothesis is critically reviewed in practical programming contexts. A concrete means of testing attitudinal gender differences to black-boxed programming elements is reported and the results described and analyzed. A survey of 50 students, designed to test the hypothesis that women are more likely to reject the techniques and “way of thinking” of abstraction in programming, casts doubt on the idea that there is any significant difference between female and male attitudes to prepackaged routines. This paper distinguishes between programming and ways of learning to program --- between concrete learning strategies and the use of abstraction in programming --- and discusses pedagogical practice as well as curriculum content.

REFERENCES

• 1: Duane A. Bailey , Duane W. Bailey, Java Elements: Principles of Programming in Java, McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 1999
• 2: Karen A. Frenkel, Women and computing, Communications of the ACM, v.33 n.11, p.34-46, Nov. 1990 [doi>10.1145/92755.92756]
• 3: Gilligan, C. 1982. Woman's place in man's life cycle. In The Second Wave, L. Nicholson, ed. Routledge, London, 1997.
• 4: Godwin, B. 2004. Number of women in IT industry falls by almost half in four years. ComputerWeekly.com. (Oct. 5). http://www.computerweekly.com/Article133867.htm. Accessed on 1 Nov. 2004.
• 5: Grundy, F. 1996. Women and Computers. Intellect Books, Exeter, UK.
• 6: Keller, E. F. 1983. A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock. W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.
• 7: Kolb, D. A. 1984. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
• 8: Kvande, E. and Rasmussen, B. 1989. Men, women and data systems. European Journal of Engineering Education 14, 1 (1989).
• 9: Krechowiecka, I. 2002. Never mind about maths. Guardian Education (26 Feb. 2002).
• 10: Peter McKenna, Transparent and opaque boxes: do women and men have different computer programming psychologies and styles?, Computers & Education, v.35 n.1, p.37-49, Aug.2000 [doi>10.1016/S0360-1315(00)00017-8]
• 11: Mckenna, P. 2001. Programmers: Concrete women and abstract men? Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 17, 4 (2001).
• 12: Peltu, M. 1993. Females in tuition. Computing 12, 2 (Dec. 1993).
• 13: Stepulevage, L. and Plumeridge, S. 1998. Women taking positions within computer science. Gender and Education 10, 3 (1998), 313--326.
• 14: Sutherland, R. and Hoyles, C. 1988. Gender perspectives on Logo programming in the mathematics curriculum. In Girls and Computers. C. Hoyles, ed. Institute of Education, London.
• 15: Sherry Turkle, The second self: computers and the human spirit, Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, NY, 1984
• 16: Turkle, S. 1988. Computational reticence: Why women fear the intimate machine. In Technology and Women's Voices: Keeping in Touch. C. Kramarae, ed. Pergamon, New York.
• 17: Turkle, S. and Papert, S. 1990. Epistemological pluralism: Styles and voices within the computer culture. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16, 1 (1990), 128--157.
• 18: Turkle, S. and Papert, S. 1992. Epistemological pluralism and the revaluation of the concrete. Journal of Mathematical Behavior 11 (1992), 3--33.
• 19: Turkle, S. 1996. Life on the Screen. Phoenix, London.
• 20: University and College Admission Service. 2003. UCAS Annual Data Sets. http://www.ucas.ac.uk/figures/ads.html. Accessed on 15 Dec. 2004.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.2 Social Issues

General Terms:
Human Factors

Keywords:
Gender, black boxes, programming styles