Oladele - your observation is interesting. Much research has gone into understanding how to make Computer Science more interesting to female students. Per this wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing) you'll see that it has been a declining enrollment for female students.

The University where I sit on an advisory board is very concerned about the lack of female students and is always looking to the board for suggestions (and ideas) as to how to entice more women to enroll.

Dear Oladele: The Dean of the School of Engineering here at ULACIT (Costa Rica) is conducting research on this topic. She has a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Virginia Tech, and has published and presented in international conferences about female students and professionals in the engineering field. Her name is Johanna Madrigal, and her e-mail address is: [email protected]

Good luck!

From a recent study involving Nigerian polytechnic first-year computer science students it appears that Prof. Dweck's theory on mindset seems to be a lens  for understanding female students' interest in computer science. Among the female students interviewed, it was a recurring theme in the answers provided by these student to the reason for enrolling and what they believed was the main factor for succeeding in CS.

Oladele - the current issue of Communications of the ACM has a study done on why CS in India attracts women.  Not to compare India to other countries, but it is an interesting data point.

Dear Oladele Campbell,

Thank you for your question. Here in the United States I have often observed (but have never attempted to seek for pertinent research) both in the media and in life that "tech" is equated to "coding" or to "computer science". All this in a world awash in mobile devices connected to social media. Electrical Engineering is, for example, rarely mentioned. So, issues around "Women in Tech" often devolve to "Women in Computing".

Perhaps there is some sort of self-reinforcing loop or positive feedback between reporting in the media (which is largely mathematically and technically illiterate) and popular perceptions about "technology" (again, in a population that is largely mathematically and technically illiterate).

A few years ago I went to a conference in Washington, DC, USA dedicated to non-profits and social media. At such a conference, I would expect fewer technologists than, say at one of the Grace Hopper Celebration conferences hosted annually by the Anita Borg Institute. The organizers of the non-profit/social media conference opened the proceedings with a question for the audience "How many of you are geeks?" and almost everyone raised their hands, often clutching their smart phones.

I was shocked. For me, a "geek" is someone who understands at some depth, and often produces, technologies such as those bundled in a smart phone. (Sure, one can be a font geek or an Ernest Hemingway geek, but the word entered my vocabulary in a physics context. I wonder what its actual etymology is.)

So, a sea change had apparently occurred, signaled by the shift in the meaning of the word "geek". You are a geek not by the technology you understand, not by the technology you create, but by the technology you consume. So, US consumer culture has embraced technology, with perhaps both positive and negative effects on the pipelines for those who would produce it.

If one looks at undergraduate graduation rates at U.S. computer science institutions going back 50 years (NSF/NCED IPEDS Completion Surveys) on sees rises in both the female and male population, a definite one at around 1984 and a lesser one at 2004, where the IBM PCjr and Apple Macintosh debuted and Facebook reached 1 million adherents, respectively. I would like to suggest that these peaks plausibly reflect interest in PCs and social media, respectively

I believe that the 1984 peak may reflect the cultural shift of "the computer" from "something in a building one learns how to use" to "something one owns" in one's home and uses for an increasingly widening range of interests, with less and less learning required.

(Unfortunately these data are often presented as a ratio of f/(f+m) and to mathematically illiterate reporters and in some cases researches, it looks like "Why'd we lose the women in computer science after 1984?" which is simply wrong, as looking at the f and m data separately makes plain.)

The graduation rates at a small number of US institutions such as MIT, Stanford, Harvey Mudd College, Depauw University and Carnegie Mellon are more gender symmetric than the US national averages. These stem from efforts in recent years that include practices as simple as having introductory programming classes split into sections for those with some experience and those with none (eliminating social pressures and defeating the imposter syndrome). Further, having exit interviews with questions as simple as "Why are you leaving the computer science major?" or "What would make a difference enough to have you stay?" and placing appropriate resources in place, makes a clear difference in this link of the long career pipeline.

I do not know why these best practices are not more widely taken up here in the US or whether similar practices are in use around the world.

So, finally, to look at your question of "why so many?" from the perspective of "why so few?" which is often how females in technology (which often codes to females in IT) is studied, there are three main categories in the literature:

• Is it innate or biological?

• Is it bias (implicit or explicit)?

• Is it choice?

(In my research I attempt to add a fourth category, the collision between culture and cognitive neuroscience called social cognitive and affective neuroscience.)

The best overview of the state of things to my mind is the research of Steve Ceci and Wendy Williams at Cornell University. I would direct you to their work. They focus on mathematical intensity of the fields in question. I find their writing clarifying. One reason is that in their review articles they exclude consideration of researchers who have improperly analyzed (or abdicated the analysis to third parties) their research data. (Again mathematical illiteracy, which is unfortunately found in some corners of the social sciences.)

Closer to home, Professor Kurt April at the University of Cape Town commands the research skills to address your question and his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering suggests he has the mathematical literacy, competence or expertise to analyze the data properly. He might be able to answer your question.

it was female inventory language and computing original form

Dear Stefan Gruner, 

It seems you have made an interesting finding on one of the interests that drive some of our female folks to computer science. This seems to be missed by many of our CS  classes and in the process  driving and killing the interest of some them who came into CS programmes with such interest.  With this frustration of mismatch between interest and male-dominated and industry-influenced curriculum, many of these promising Ada lovelaces are led to  believe in the stereotypical belief that CS is for the Adams. CS and advancement in computing is the worse for it as we continue to make our field unattractive to these gals and miss their substantial contributions. 

As the computing industry and academia increasingly seem to be concerned about what makes computing field attracts low patronage from many of our female folks who can make unique contributions, this article perhaps provides some answers worth considering.

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/17/10781366/women-technology-sexual-harassment

Unfortunately this topic has been researched and looked at extensively and many of the suggestions do not seem to work.  My department use to be a majority of female faculty and the school itself is 65% female but our classrooms were filled more with males than females.  The reputation that computer science is still geeky (all game playing, constant coding) and that people working int he field spend 90% of their day just coding and typing away on the keyboard is one thing I hear over and over that makes women stay away from the field.

For my school the females we get interested in the field that did not come to school interested in computer science has to do with the general education course and who is teaching it.  We have an instructor who teaching using arduino boards and this gets more females excited about the program, I use graphics and I get equal interest from males and females, I do not emphasis games purposely because of the negative connotation about that even though this is part of my specialty.  When we have adjuncts that nit pick on coding standards, documentation or best design solution, this has lost us majors.  I think the best approach to CS0 is to short them what can be done in programming and computer science and not get bogged down in the nitty gritty about best practices.

Dear Esteemed colleagues,

With the interest you have shown on this question of what makes computing attractive to the few women, I suppose the research paper by Lehman, Sax and Zimmerman will be worthwhile reading:

https://www.google.com.ng/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://braidresearch.gseis.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/LehmanSaxZimmerman2017.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwi094Ht56LXAhULKFAKHbucAz4QFggvMAE&usg=AOvVaw0SUcsWKFdXyA3X8Pt3837x

https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3059048

Hope this helps!

Thanks Keith for sharing your research on this subject. I have read your paper and i think it provides some answers and insights to my question.

Have you seen:

Article Gender differences in computer attitudes: Does the school matter?

Article The effect of computer use on gender differences in attitude...

Article The effects of age, gender and computer experience upon comp...

Article Girls, Boys and Computers

This research provide some answers (or questions) to this question of women's interests or persistence in Computing:

https://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/resources/computingmay2017_multiple_factors_converge_to_influence_womens_persistence_in_computing.pdf