1. 7th eSTEeM Conference, Milton Keynes
Gendered enrolment patterns in Computing and IT
Clem Herman, Helen Donelan, Helen Jefferis, Janet Hughes, Elaine Thomas,
7th eSTEeM Conference, Milton Keynes
25th April 2018

2. Proportion of female applicants to specific Computer Science sub-disciplines in 2015 (for courses with 100 or more female applicants) :
Information Systems - 18%, ‘other’ Computer Science courses - 17%, ‘straight’ Computer Science - 14%, combinations in Computer Science - 14%, Games - 13% and Software Engineering - 10%.
Number of female students qualifying in IT/ computing degrees has fallen by 10% over the past 5 years
6 months after graduation, 63% of male graduates but only 47% of female IT graduates were in an IT role

4. OU gendered enrolment patterns
Athena SWAN data: Enrolments by gender for: Q62 - BSc Computing and IT, and Q67 -BSc Joint Honours Computing and a second subject.
The sector average for female part-time computer science students is 16.0%7

5. Level 1 Year Female Male Total % Female 2013/14 694 3307 4001 17%
A key introductory module for all Computing and IT students was TU100 My Digital Life as the majority of Q62 and Q67 Level 1 students study this module in their first year.
Athena SWAN data 2016: Number of students on entry level TU100 by gender
However, these percentages are not reflected in the proportion of women who have registered for our single honours degree Q62.
Athena SWAN action plan: investigate motivation and degree choice of women in computing related subjects.
Year
Female
Male
Total
% Female
2013/14
694
3307
4001
17%
2014/15
753
3123
3876
19%
2015/16
685
2929
3614

6. Survey results 253 responses (20% response rate) on:
reasons for degree choice; previous IT experience; career intentions;
confidence with subject; gender balance.

7. This graph shows the relative percentages within each gender so eg out of a total of 166 women just over 50% (83) stated Q62 / B62.
Q62 /B62 was the most commonly stated intention for both genders although only 50% of women compared to over 75% of men stated this as their intended qualification.
The joint honours degree (Q67 / B67) was also the next most common for both genders however over 25% of women stated this as their intention compared to just under 11% for men. (This might link to confidence issues eg see Q5 & Q7)

9. Required for degree: A higher percentage of men (78% compared to 56% of women), stated it was a requirement for their degree. Adding together the top 2 (4&5) this shows that 82% of men required it for their degree compared with 67% of women.

10. Module success: Adding responses 4 and 5 together shows that only 68% of women, compared to 95% of men, stated that they felt confident in their ability to succeed on the module.
Keeping up: only 61% of women responded in the most confident categories compared to 80% of men when responding on how confident they felt in keeping up with others.
Overall confidence: Considering the first 2 questions together it is worth noticing that 90% of men, compared with only 67% of women answered as strongly agree to these confidence questions.

11. Where are we now? TM111 – new Level 1 Module
Overall population 17J % (1898) Male; 24% (617) Female
Overall population 18D % (1440) Male; 24% (462) Female
Degree
Intention
TM111 17J
TM111 18D M F
Q62
Number
957
195
831
159 % 83 17 84 16
Q67
579
617
249
133 67 24 65 35

13. Challenges
A step change in gender equality in technology related education;
Increase in applications and acceptances for CS courses from women and from under represented age, socio-economic and ethnic groups;
Lowering of barriers to returning to work for those who have taken career breaks and need to refresh their digital skills;
Increased flexibility in work models offered by employers for software professionals;
A change in perception of what it means to be a software professional
Evidence of a steepening trajectory towards elimination of the gender imbalance on CS degree programmes as evidenced by e.g. 10% increase in applications / acceptances of women at IoC member HEIs
All IoC-member CS departments achieving at least Athena Swan Bronze awards, and a substantial subset achieving Silver or Gold by March 2021.
A 5% increase in software professionals, particularly women, returning to work after career breaks.

14. Discussion
What can we do to support women students in computing and engineering and make OU a sector leader in good practice?
Come up with 3 practical ideas
Short list ideas and vote for top three – to be taken forward to the STEM Faculty ‘Manifesto’ for EDI