ABSTRACT

As part of an NSF-funded IT Workforce grant, the authors conducted ethnographic research to provide deep understanding of the learning environment of computer science classrooms. Categories emerging from data analysis included 1) impersonal environment and guarded behavior; and 2) the creation and maintenance of informal hierarchy resulting in competitive behaviors. These communication patterns lead to a defensive climate, characterized by competitiveness rather cooperation, judgments about others, superiority, and neutrality rather than empathy. The authors identify particular and recognizable types of discourse, which, when prevalent in a classroom, can preclude the development of a collaborative and supportive learning environment. Panel at SIGCSE: Contrasting women's experiences in computer science at different institutions http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1047344.1047379 Position statement: Lecia Barker: One long-standing explanation for the low participation of women in the sciences is the social and pedagogical climate of the classroom. In our research at the University of Colorado, however, we found few of the overtly anti-woman characteristics of the “chilly climate” first described in 1982 by Hall and Sandler. Nevertheless, we found that classroom climate in introductory classes was difficult and inhospitable for both men and women. Unfortunately, however, the characteristics leading to the “defensive climate” more acutely affect women than they do men, chipping away at their confidence and motivation because women enter computer science with less experience and coursework than men, must overcome a general societal belief that computing is in the male domain (thus making their presence a violation of an unspoken norm), and because they are so few in number, feel both isolated and conspicuous. Our observations showed infrequent interpersonal interaction among students and professors, inexperienced students left behind by the fast pace, an unusually low frequency of questions or helpseeking, an environment where making mistakes was not allowed, and unchecked bids for attention and status among a few outspoken students. In interviews with 51 students, students said they often wanted to compare their performance with that of others, yet the individual nature of assignments made it impossible to know whether one was performing well or poorly. Students also perceived that one needed prior knowledge to succeed, so that in reality, the introductory course was not for beginners. Less experienced students interviewed felt intimidated by the outspoken students, and feared asking questions because they would slow down the class or expose their lack of knowledge. In combination with other changes (e.g., making assignments more concrete and palatable), changing the classroom climate to remove several of these characteristics could go a long way toward increasing the participation of women in computing. Biography: Lecia Barker is the head of the Evaluation and Research Group of the Alliance for Technology, Learning, and Society at the University of Colorado and is a senior research scientist for the National Center for Women and Information Technology. Barker studies formal and informal education in information technology, focusing on efforts to make computing more inclusive (gender and race/ethnicity). Her qualitative research on classroom communication makes visible behaviors that can lead to a "defensive climate" and how this can have gender-differentiated implications for students. She holds a PhD in communication from the University of Colorado, Boulder, an MBA in marketing from San Diego State University, and a BA in Spanish, Linguistics, and Portuguese from the University of Iowa.

Friday, August 26, 2005
Michele Co
Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia
Chair: Jack W. Davidson
Advisor: Kevin Skadron
Olsson 236D, 3:30 PM

A Ph.D. Proposal

Designing Energy Efficient Fetch Engines