What do Female Students in Middle and High Schools Think about Computer Science Majors in Brasilia, Brazil? A Survey in 2011 and 2019

Abstract

Research Full Paper - Computer Science majors lack gender diversity in Brasilia, Brazil. Women are an underrepresented minority group in these majors. At the University of Brasilia, one of the top ten universities in Brazil, female undergraduate students account for less than 15% of the students in the Department of Computer Science. In an effort to understand the lack of interest in Computer Science majors among women, this paper addresses the following research questions: 1)Are female students in high school aware that Computer Science majors are predominantly male? 2)Are families of girls from Brasilia supportive of their enrolment in Computer Science majors? 3)Do girls from Brasilia think that Computer Science majors need a lot of Math? 4)Do female students in high school think that it is difficult to get a job in the field of Computing, with a good salary, and sufficient leisure time? and 5)Which factors influence a female student’s choice of a Computer Science major? We devised a questionnaire and applied it to female students in middle and high school on two occasions, in October 2011 (1391 responses) and in July 2019 (429 responses). This paper presents the analysis of the data from the responses, which indicates that the girls’ perceptions of Computing have not changed in those years.