Computing pathways: A quantitative inquiry into the dynamic pathways of students in computing with gender comparisons

Abstract

The number of female students in computing fields remains low despite the millions of dollars spent on research for attracting more female students. In order to entice more female students to these male dominated fields, we first have to understand their pathways to CS and educational years we are losing female students. For the purposes of this study, we utilized the data from the Florida IT Paths (FLIT-PATH) project, an NSF funded study. Participants included approximately, 1650 students from three large public universities. The survey contained 39 questions on identity, field of study, and occupational interest during middle school, high school, and college. The responses gathered through the Qualtrics survey system and were analyzed in R by the research team. The research questions that guided this study were: 1- To what extent are female students interested in computing related fields at middle school, the beginning of high school, and the beginning of college? 2- How have these occupational pursuits changed over time? Do they differ for gender? The results of the study indicated a majority of female students that were attracted to computing fields during middle school remained in those fields during high school and college years. However, there was no significant flow from other majors to computing fields observed during the different educational years.