Retention
Discover solutions for retaining women in technology and science classes and careers.
Over 46% of women who participated in pair programming in an introductory undergraduate computer science course declared a computer science related major compared to 11% of women who worked independently. Pair programming also resulted in a 24% increase in self-reported confidence for female students, and a 15% increase for male students. This paper compares the retention, major selection, confidence level, and performance ability of undergraduate female and male students who experienced pair programming with a control group that worked independently.
Read "Pair Programming Improves Student Retention, Confidence, and Program Quality" on the University of California eScholarship website.
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McDowell, C., Werner, L., Bullock, H., & Fernald, J. (2006). Pair Programming Improves Student Retention, Confidence, and Program Quality. Communications of the ACM, 49(8). doi:http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1145287 |
Seven women who persisted in STEM careers after participating in a single-sex living and learning community (LLC) for women in STEM were interviewed to see how the LLC impacted their decisions. The results show that the LLC positively affected their persistence.
Download the article from the International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology.
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Hughes, R. (2010). Keeping College Women in STEM Fields. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology, 2(3), 416-436. Retrieved from http://genderandset.open.ac.uk/index.php/genderandset/article/view/96 |
This case study from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) explains how instructors can implement pair programming in their computing courses, and shares how the University of California Santa Cruz used pair programming assignments to increase the retention of both female and male students.
Read the full case study on the NCWIT website.
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Barker, L., & Cohoon, J. M. (2007). How Do You Retain Women through Collaborative Learning? Pair Programming (Case Study 1). Retrieved from The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) website: www.ncwit.org/pairpractice |
A cross-sectional survey of 798 high school science students showed that although female students may respond better to a female teacher’s classroom management, build reciprocal trust more with female teachers, and be more open to the pressure to learn from female teachers, in most instances the gender of the science teacher did not make a significant difference to female (or male) students. The researchers conclude that it's important for teachers to know about these differences, but do not recommend that female students should be taught only by female science teachers.
Download the article from the International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology.
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Elstad, E., & Turmo, A. (2009). The Influence of the Teacher’s Sex on High School Students' Engagement and Achievement in Science. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology, 1(1), 84-104. Retrieved from http://genderandset.open.ac.uk/index.php/genderandset/article/view/41 |
This guide from Catalyst includes results from surveys and interviews with change agents and businessmen on ways to get support from men and research-based recommendations for how to engage men in efforts to increase diversity. It also includes strategies used by employers such as Volvo and Ernst and Young to increase involvement of women in the companies.
Download a PDF of the full guide from Catalyst.
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Prime, J., & Moss-Racusin, C. A. (2009). Engaging Men in Gender Initiatives: What Change Agents Need to Know. New York: Catalyst. Retrieved from http://www.catalyst.org/file/283/mdc-web.pdf |
The WomenTech Educators Training got us thinking intentionally about who we were going to target for outreach, how we were going to target them, and how we would follow up to make sure we had actual results linked to the different programs and events that we were holding. Since then, it has grown organically and blossomed into something that our college just does naturally.
I think getting together as a team with intention—because we're all so busy—and developing a written plan that we could stick to was what made all the difference. I don’t think we would have ever done that if it wasn't for the WomenTech Educators Training.