Changing Mental Models of the IT Professions: A Theoretical Framework

Abstract

conclusions. The Framework proposes that universities partner with local schools and business organizations to demonstrate that IT careers are directly tied to solving real-life problems and to show female and minority students real IT professionals at work, solving real problems that affect real people like them. The Framework includes four distinct components: mentoring, social cohesion and peer support, role modeling, and curriculum redesign. The article includes a detailed literature review of research relating to each of these four areas. The Framework focuses on fostering positive and diverse mental models of IT careers and IT professionals. This goal is significant because female and minority students tend to view IT careers and the people who work in computing-related jobs as overridingly white, male, and technology-focused. Consequently, these student populations require active and ongoing mentoring, social support, role modeling, and curriculum redesign to help them understand that they possess similar qualities to IT professionals and managers, and that these career paths are open to them and to others like them. The next step in this process of working to increase female and minority IT enrollment and academic success will be to implement the proposed Framework and to monitor its effects on IT recruitment and retention. It is only through proactive social support measures such as the Framework proposed here that we can bring under-represented female and minority populations more equally into the IT world.