2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The lack of women in computer science is a decades old problem. Numerous studies have looked at contributing factors that lead to this problem, one of which is lack of self confidence in female students. Having less confidence than their male peers lead women to feel uncomfortable asking questions and speaking out in class, feel isolated in the field, and ultimately steer them away from computer science. The purpose of this study is to understand how women’s computing confidence is shaped by their experiences in introductory computer science courses and to understand how their experiences lead to negative attitudes towards computer science.
To answer these questions, this study uses a narrative analysis approach. Four female, non-computer science students at a large public university were interviewed, using a semi-structured protocol. Interviews were then qualitatively coded using thematic analysis, and analyzed using the theoretical frameworks of self-efficacy and self-concept. Results show that while participants were highly successful in their course (reporting a high mark in the class) and had relatively high self-efficacy when discussing specific programming problems, they lacked computing self-concept in whether or not they were good at programming in general. Some participants directly said they were not good at coding, while others noted that they knew they could be successful but then used unconfident language such as stating they often asked ‘stupid questions’ or believed they were only successful due to the help of instructors and TAs. Results also show a common theme in which most participants believed that if they had to work hard in the course, then they were not good at computer science.
Understanding how women grapple with self-confidence even while being highly successful in computing courses is needed to better understand how to create environments that are welcoming and inclusive of women. While self-efficacy can be built through mastery experiences, this study suggests that mastery experiences are not enough to build general computing self-concept. Since a lack of computing confidence in women can cause negative attitudes towards the field of computer science, future work should focus on ways in which this confidence can be increased so as to try and minimize the number of women avoiding or leaving the field of computer science.