UNM PROFESSOR RECEIVES GRANT TO EXTEND RESEARCH ON CROSS-ETHNIC DIFFERENCES

September 19, 2003

UNM PROFESSOR RECEIVES GRANT TO EXTEND RESEARCH ON CROSS-ETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN WOMEN’S PREFERENCES FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Roli Varma, an associate professor in the School of Public Administration within the Anderson Schools of Management, has received $345,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to extend her research to understand the reasons for under-representation of undergraduate women majoring in core information technology (IT) disciplines, including computer science (CS) and computer engineering (CE) at institutions of higher learning.

Varma has spent the past several years studying the impact of science and technology on women and minorities and has received grants to conduct research on these topics from the NSF and the Alfred Sloan Foundation.

Varma has teamed up with Deepak Kapur, chair and professor, computer science, School of Engineering (SOE), to continue the study. Varma specializes in the role of gender in education, while Kapur brings expertise in the IT field. He supervises curriculum and instructions development and student advisement.

“The research in this new project is a continuation of the pilot study titled, “Why So Few Women in Information Technology?: A Comparative Study which was initiated in 2002,” said Varma. “The pilot study revealed new insights on issues related to the problems of under-representation of women in IT along gender and ethnic lines. To make the findings from the pilot study reliable and valid, it is essential to increase the sample size to a minimum of 15 subjects in each ethnic category. The unevenness of samples in each category, which is the case in the pilot study, makes it difficult to draw any reliable comparison among different ethnic groups.”

Like in the pilot, Varma and Kapur are focusing on two questions: Why do women in different ethnic groups who have the potential to succeed in the study of IT disciplines take alternative educational paths; and what barriers and obstacles must be overcome to attract more women in different ethnic groups to IT education and careers?

Three groups of individuals selected to participate in the pilot included Hispanic, Asian and white respondents, Afro-American respondents and Native American respondents.

Preliminary results from the pilot study confirmed several aspects previously identified in literature on women in science and engineering and the IT field, namely digital divide; confidence gap in mathematics and IT in general; subtle biases in early socialization; masculine environment; and the lack of a specific role model and mentoring.

The pilot study, which received $110,000 in NSF funding, also revealed a number of new insights among students’ preference for IT education and careers. First, perception of IT as white male-oriented discipline is outweighed by job opportunities in IT to move up the economic ladder. Second, students who switched from CS and CE, remained within IT-related area such as information systems because they offer better job prospects and economic gains. Third, students faced technical difficulties due to lack of experience with inadequate problem solving skills and software debugging techniques. Fourth, students had poor time management skills especially when many must work part-time to support their studies and in some cases their families.

Varma will supervise data collection and conduct interviews for an additional 100 subjects, including 80 male and female students majoring in CS or CE and approximately 20 dropouts, making the total sample of over 160 subjects.

“If we want more women and minorities in the IT Workforce, we must identify key factors that deter them from pursuing education in IT in the rapidly changing environment,” said Varma. “Only then can we facilitate success for women and minorities in IT fields. Otherwise, their presence in IT would remain merely a token, and IT fields would continue to be dominated by white men and foreign workers.”

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