Gender Differences in Students’ Perceptions of Information Technology as a Career

Abstract

This paper reports on an investigation into first year students' perceptions of IT as a career.There are many stereotypes of the typical IT professional.These stereotypes are often depicted in the media and affect students' perceptions of the career and whether they should study IT or not.are some methods that might help to address the problem of females not choosing an IT career.The first recommendation is that the problem needs to be tackled in the early years -primary and lower secondary school.As students say that much of their knowledge of IT as a career comes from school, the school curriculum should be looked at to determine if it is suitable for both sexes.This could include the curriculum itself or the way in which it is taught and assessed.Another avenue that could be addressed is way in which computer personnel are depicted in the media.Girls' magazines that target the early teen market could be used by Computer Societies to raise the profile of girls seeing technology as fun, worthwhile and a job that they might consider.This could be done through sponsoring activities, advertisements or games.The research is limited in its generalizability and further research will need to be done to determine how to address the issues raised.

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