"In recent years the discipline of computer science has become recognized as a male dominated field." (Howell 1) The facts are, at a time when our culture is becoming more and more technical, the numbers of those studying computing are declining and, within this decline, the number and percent of females are declining at an alarming rate. (Moses 151) It has become an accepted fact that females are under-represented at every level: grade school, high school, undergraduate institutions, graduate schools and in industry.

The Association of Computing Machinery has recognized the problem and formed (November, 1990) a committee to study the status of women and minorities. The committee was formed in recognition of a problem documented by much research.

The acceptance of the problem is evidenced by the number of presentations at the recent, February, 1993, SIGCSE Technical Symposium in Indianapolis. Included were two panels, Creating an Environment for the Success of Women Students in Undergraduate, Co-Ed Computer Science Programs and Improving Mentoring for Women in Computer Science Fields. In addition two papers, Women in Computer Science and Attracting Women to Tertiary Computing Courses, were presented. In the previous conference, March, 1992, there were no panels on this topic but there were two papers presented.

By comparison, at the February, 1989 conference, the only paper which touched on the subject was one that examined the effects of high school computer science, gender and work on success in computer science students. This paper supported previous conjectures that sex [maleness] by itself can be a good predictor for success in computer science. (Taylor and Mounfield 196) Although statistics suggest that the decline in both number and percent of female students at the college level began in about 1987, (Moses 152) the problem has only recently come to be recognized and documented.

Karen Frenkle, in her report, Women & Computing, says the following:

There are disproportionately low numbers of women in academic computer science and the computer industry. The situation may be perpetuated for several generations since studies show that girls from grade school to high school are losing interest in computing. (Frenkle 35)

One of many studies of grade schools and high schools is by Valerie Clarke. It is a comprehensive study of a representative sample of 2331 elementary and secondary schools in the United States and reports male dominance of school computing activities. The dominance being greatest in the more independent, teacher-free activities, such as before-school and after-school computer use. Girls accounted for 28% of these users at elementary level, 22% in middle school and 26% at high school. (Becker in Clarke 54) Girls, for various reasons, do not as often choose computing-related activites. The British explain the phonomenon as follows: "Boys have bigger elbows."

The trends at the postsecondary level in the USA are consistent with what has begun in grade school and continued through high school. In the UK the figures are even more troubling. The numbers of women accepted by universities for computing degrees declined from 24% in 1980 to 10% in 1987 where it has more or less leveled off. (Dain 3)

This paper looks at ways in which the typical undergraduate computing classroom contributes to the problem and presents some suggestions for increasing user- friendliness. Indeed, the techniques which make many women feel more comfortable may have a positive effect on all students.

The students do not come to our classrooms empty-handed. They bring with them preconceived notions about themselves and the culture in which they live. If we want our classrooms to be friendly to all of our students we must take at least two things into account: the male dominance in the computer culture and that gender differences can affect performance.

With respect to the computer culture:

Computer science as an academic subject in the UK and USA does not seem to be especially person-friendly at the moment: at least it only seems to be friendly to a particular kind of person, a young white male. A degree course in computer science is dominated by males: undergraduates, postgraduates, research staff, and teaching staff are, in the vast majority, male. The computer subculture is mainly masculine, starting at an early age with games of violence and progressing to hacking, the penetration of networks and systems. (Dain 2)

The "myths" of male superiority have been dispelled in study after study. However, this does not mean that classrooms in which male students excel will also be classrooms in which female students excel. There are differences in attributional processes, self- esteem, autonomy and socialization.

The differences between the ways males and females react to success and failure are important to providing an academic environment in which all students can succeed.

At both primary and secondary level, boys generally attribute their failures to a lack of appropriate strategies, while girls attribute them to their own lack of competence or the difficulty of the task. Boys attribute the successes to their good strategies; girls attribute them to luck. This means that boys and girls are using the information provided by their successes and failures differently. Boys are using this information to modify their strategies and develop more appropriate ones, while girls are gaining little positive benefit from their success and a lowered self-image from their failures. These differences in attributional processes have implications for student attitudes and achievement. Males develop more positive attitudes, rating themselves as more skilled than do females with comparable levels of achievement. For males, computing achievement relates to computing experience whereas, for females, this relationship is minimal, as they fail to develop the strategies assumed in most computing courses. Females use reproductive strategies, relying on memory whereas males use constructive strategies, more dependent on understanding. Females are less autonomous. They rely on others to assist when they experience difficulties, believing that experimenters, teachers, and others in authority have the information they can use. In contrast, males seek to find their own solutions. Females are more likely to retain the strategy initially adopted, whereas males are more likely to take risks and develop new strategies to cope with different types of problems. Females are less likely than males to go beyond the information given in the learning environment to learn why the rules work. (Clarke 58)

There have been many studies of female students at the college level which show these attitudes toward success, failure and self-esteem are unchanged upon entering college. The Illinois valedictory study shows the self esteem of bright females actually tends to decline during college. (Widnall in Becoming A Computer Scientist 50) A study of graduate students at Stanford University found that:

The women were indistinguishable from the men in objective measures of preparation, career aspirations, and performance in graduate school. They differed significantly in their perceptions of the preparation for graduate study, in the pressures and roadblocks that they experienced, and in the strategies that they developed for coping with these pressures... 30% of the women versus 15% of the men questioned their ability to handle the work; 27% versus 12% found criticism difficult to accept; only 30% of the women versus 57% of the men felt confident speaking up in class and 33% versus 9% feared that speaking up would reveal their inadequacies. (Becoming a Computer Scientist 50)

One would expect these women to be among the most capable of computing graduates and yet their self-esteem and their confidence is considerably lower than that of their male counterparts. The last area to be mentioned is the differing social needs of male and female students.

Girls and boys have different social needs which affect their evaluation of computing experiences. Whereas boys enjoy working alone and tinkering with computers, most girls prefer activities involving social interaction. Many school computer rooms place the computers in lines and allocate one child to each computer, effectively reducing opportunities for social interaction and hence being less attractive to girls than to boys. (Clarke 58,59)

A. The role of the teacher

There are attitudes and actions of a teacher which make a classroom "friendly" for female students. In a study conducted by Taylor and Mounfield (Taylor and Mounfield 195) it is reported that more males than females both enroll in CS courses and are successful in those courses. Indeed, Campbell and McCabe conclude that being male is, in itself, a good predictor of success in computer science. (Campbell and McCabe 1110)

Perhaps, we as teachers in computer science classrooms, have geared our teaching to these, mostly male, students who are successful. The following are proposed:

1. More teacher availability. More than office hours are needed. Female students are more likely to need to ask a question and get an answer. One-on- one conferences about program assignments are a good idea as are assigned lab times for working on program assignments, with the classroom teacher in attendance.

2. Encourage the student. Mounfield and Taylor report what many of us have noticed: Grades for female students do not follow the expected distribution. The females seem to be clustered at the top and at the bottom. They say, "Efforts must be made to attract the "average" female student."(Mounfield and Taylor 196) Positive feedback from the teacher is especially important for the more social and less confident female student.

3. Advising. Women with lower self-esteem are less likely to remain in the field. "We will know we have arrived when it's OK for women to get C's in science, math, engineering and computer science. Right now, if you're not an A or B student, you don't even think about going into those fields."(Frenkle 44) Currently, female high achievers stay in, the others frequently find other topics to pursue. Teachers, in the role of advisor, can play a significant role in attracting and keeping not only the more confident female students but also the less confident.

B. The environment

Helen Yewlett writes about her school in West Glamorgan, Wales. It is unusual in that equal numbers of male and female students elect computing courses. This is even more unusual in the UK than it would be in the USA.

Perhaps it is a female trait, I don't know, but I have always taken the view that I spend an enormous portion of my waking life in my work environment and that therefore it should be pleasant for my own sake. When I first moved to Ystalyfera, I cleaned the entire room out, going down on my hands and knees to get the dirt up and had a complete rearrangement of the furniture. . . When I could I had flowers in the room. I have never liked clinical, sterile computing places. I do want a clean environment .. true .. that is a necessity with computers but I also want an environment that is warm, colourful and lively. I see no reason why a women should copy many a man's impersonal approach to his work. (Yewlett 217)

How often is it that a male computing student works in an environment that is designed by females for females? Yet women in computing usually work in an environment designed by males without female input. The minimal qualifications for a computing workspace:

1. clean
2. well-lighted
3. well-supervised (not "taken over" by the hackers)
4. well-ventilated (Some students drop computing courses because the rooms where they are required to work have students whose bathing/studying ratio is not what it should be.)
5. designed to promote interaction between students
6. spacious
7. pleasant
8. quiet

Unlike some of their male counterparts, women computing students rarely "hang out" in the computer labs. It is very easy for the lab itself to become a sort of "boys club" to which the females don't want to come.

C. The class work

1. Change the Rules

The stereotypical computer scientist was a lone male sitting in a cubical with his back to the door, working away at something mysterious and, in the past, our computer science classrooms have encouraged this sterotype. Currently, however, we have come to know that (1) working together facilitates learning and (2) the stereotype is inaccurate. Professional computer scientists work in teams; they help one another.

Those who study learning tell us that working together facilitates learning and that this is especially true in problem solving. It is also especially true for females who are more social, more willing to ask questions and more likely to feel defeated when solutions are not immediately forth-coming.

The user-friendly classroom encourages students to ask one another questions, to grapple together with what appear to be unsolvable problems. All of us would agree that it is entirely inappropriate for Chris to write a program for Pat. What if Chris and Pat discuss a problem over a period of time and together come to a common solution which each then implements in his or her program? What if Chris, in a flash of insight, sees a solution and then explains it to Pat?

Here are a few guidelines.

If Chris and Pat work together on a part of an assignment, then both students should acknowledge this in the documentation for that program segment.

If Pat asks Chris for help and Chris complies then it is Chris's responsibility to make sure Pat completely understands the problem and the solution. It is Pat's responsibility to acknowledge Chris's assistance in the program documentation. Neither student's grade will be affected.

Each student is to do his or her own work on his or her own disc. It is considered a breach of this code for any student to enter material on or copy material from another student's program space.

There may be, at the beginning, a lack of trust on the part of the students. This will be especially true if this is a complete break from their past computing experience. (In the more tradional models, students helped one another and then covered up by changing variable names and making a few stylistic changes.)

Having this kind of freedom to help one another is especially important for students who are less confident. Pat will feel better about working on the project with the knowledge that there will be someone else who is also struggling and who is willing to talk about it. This type of sharing is also important for those of our students who are more social by nature.

2. Groups Work

Team work is person-friendly; it requires people to communicate and co- operate. Within a team, work is non-competitive and supported by team members. This is the opposite of much individual work in computing degree courses, where students do not communicate except with a computer, and compete for the highest ranking in the class. Teamwork is recommended as a means for attracting females into science and technology courses by the Equal Opportunities Commission . . . and by Rosser . . .. (Dain 4)

Several years ago, the major criticism of those graduating with the bachelor's degree was that they didn't know how to work in groups, a crucial skill in the computing industry.

If a student is more social, less autonomous and has less self-confidence, then a good group experience is a perfect way to provide an environment in which that person will feel comfortable and confident and therefore be able to learn. (True, there are groups and there are groups. Some care must be exercised.)

The key, especially for lower level classes, is careful assignment and good supervision. Well defined projects are crucial. From the teacher's point of view, the amount of time and planning involved is considerably more with groups than with individual assignments. However, there is the trade-off of fewer actual projects to grade.

There is, of course, the possibility that not all students will do the same amount of work and so be graded unfairly. A technique which has been successful for some teachers is to have each student submit an evaluation which details the way in which the project was constructed. Each student also estimates the percent of the work he or she did and explains any extenuating circumstances such as difficulty in finding times to meet together or personality conflicts.

3. Time Management

The perception of most students is that the computing courses require more time. A history course, even with a major paper or two, may appear to be much less time consuming than a course which requires extensive programming. The inability to gauge the amount of time needed is also disconcerting to some students. A student who is already less than confident frequently decides to choose what appears to be an easier route. This time-perception difficulty can be, at least partially, overcome by using more structured labs with projects that are designed to be finished during the lab time. It will also be helpful to design projects with closure so that it is not true that students who are willing to spend the most time will receive the best grade. The computing labs are sometimes located in areas where females don't feel safe coming and going, especially after dark. In such cases, it is especially important to structure assignments to a reasonable time frame.

D. Importance of Role Models

If all institutions were included, it is likely the statistics would be better than those in the most recent Taulbee Report which states that only 6.5% of computer science and computer engineering faculty at Taulbee institutions are female. (Gries and Marsh 140) However, one would guess there are many all-male departments and very few departments where there are as many female faculty members as male faculty members.

As we all know: "The existence of role models does matter, and it matters to women at all stages of their careers." (Becoming a Computer Scientist 51)

The long-term solution is to have more female faculty in the departments. In the meantime?

Use upper level female students in visible positions like lab assistants and tutors. Find well-qualified women to use in visiting scholar programs and as guest lecturers. Include women as team members at various programming contests. (Myers 65) Female students may not be naturally drawn to these activities; recruiting may be necessary. Use female faculty, where possible, or female students in visible advising positions and in high school recruiting.

While it is true that female students need females for role models, there is no reason that men cannot serve as mentors for women, given an appropriate sensitivity to the problems that women in computer science may face. (Becoming a Computer Scientist 51) Paul Myers, in Men Supporting Women in Computer Science gives several workable recommendations for men mentoring women in the computer science classroom. (Myers)

It has been shown that the computer science classroom is not always "user-friendly," at least not friendly to all students at all times, and some suggestions for improvement have been made. It is important to note that it is not the opinion of the author, nor any other credible computer scientist, that the current status is the result of some kind of male conspiracy whose goal is to keep women in their place. Indeed, the studies appear to support the notion that all teachers, both male and female, in all computer science classrooms can find ways to improve the teaching/learning environment.

One can only wonder, along with along with C. Dianne Martin of George Washington University:

. . . how many ideas, that could have been contributed by female talent, will never surface to enrich academic computer science? More broadly, what are the repercussions to our increasingly computer-oriented society, if women - about half the population and professional workforce - are not as prepared in this discipline as are men? Perhaps we will not have to find out. (Frenkle 45)

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