Digital Divas teacher attitudes
As there was only one Digital Divas teacher at each school, their attitudes will be discussed individually.
As stated in Chapter 2, to implement a successful program, one of the five key inputs required was a committed, creative, passionate teacher skilled in IT. At Goldstine SC, Jay was enthusiastic about the program and believed it was on target to encourage girls’ involvement and interest in IT. She envisaged girls being enthusiastic in the classroom and choosing IT in the future as a result of a successful program. Jay, who had ten years of experience as a teacher including four as an IT teacher, had studied an IT degree and had worked in the IT industry as an analyst programmer for six years before becoming a teacher. She was concerned that her IT knowledge level was only just above that of the students. She thought that the range of skills required for the program was unrealistic ‘for any ordinary IT teacher to have’ and that she would have liked training or step-by-step instructions for the program ‘which would save me having to fossick around and try and figure it out myself.’ In 2010, Jay commented that she had ‘expected that the [Expert] Diva would know how to use all the modules and know exactly what to do and would do all that’. This indic ated that she thought she could take a passive role in the classroom, evidence of her incorrect interpretation of program expectations of the teacher and the
Expert Diva. In 2011, however, Jay believed her IT skills had improved and, although still concerned about her level of knowledge, she was ‘much more confident’.
Classroom observations of Jay by the Digital Divas research team led to impressions that she was time-poor. She seemed disorganised, there appeared to be a lack of preparation of the materials that the program provided to teachers, and she had class-control issues, with students watching movies and writing blogs during class time.
At Bartik SC, Alice, who was involved with the Digital Divas pilot program, was pleased and excited to continue her involvement with the program. She saw a successful program as one that would result in more girls taking IT units at VCE level. Alice was a curriculum coordinator and IT teacher at the school who had taught IT for eight years. She had studied IT at tertiary level, undertaken professional development in IT and IT education since becoming a teacher, and was interested in doing more. Alice was employed by the Digital Divas research team to write the modules for the program and was enthusiastic, with ideas for expansion of the program including involving other classes and arranging excursions to IT companies. In the interviews Alice said she enjoyed the flexibility of the curriculum, experimenting with ideas and finding out what worked with her students. She rated her computer skills as high and her enjoyment of teaching IT as high. Classroom observations by the Digital Divas research team in 2010 revealed Alice’s enthusiasm, confidence and ability to run the class.
Alice was, however, on maternity leave a few weeks before the end of the 2010 class and for the first term of the 2011 class. While no data were gathered from the replacement teachers, student comments in the 2011 post-program interview indicated very different teaching styles. Students explained that while Alice ‘gives us more time if we don’t get something done or she’s very flexible’, one replacement teacher (a male) was described as rigid, demanding, and strict.
In addition to finding teachers who were experienced, confident, and enjoyed teaching IT, a goal of the program was to increase girls’ confidence in, and attitudes towards, IT and anticipated results were that girls might consider studying IT and envisage themselves in IT careers. It was hoped that the Digital Divas program teachers’ beliefs about gender differences with regard to IT would align with the aims of the program. On the pre- and post-intervention survey surveys, teachers were asked several questions related to this issue.
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Jay, the Goldstine Digital Divas program teacher, indicated that she believed boys were more confident, competent, and interested or enthusiastic about IT than girls. She thought that this was because boys were more proficient with IT, more likely to use computers at home, and because boys picked IT subjects and girls did not. She noted that girls were more passive with IT; they followed instructions and asked for help, whereas boys had a go, took risks and ‘fiddled’, which made them more suited to IT.
Comments by Jay in the pre-and post-intervention interviews appeared to indicate that she was not, perhaps, the role model the program had envis aged, as she seemed to have some stereotypically ‘nerdy’ qualities; for example, she used her personal IT experience selling concrete pipes to inspire the students.
She was also surprised that the students were so engaged in manipulating pictures and discussing models in the ‘Fab & Famous’ module. Her surprise provided further evidence that Jay may have been out of touch with what the students found interesting. Jay assumed that the students would find programming boring and stated that IT is a ‘nerd class’. In addition, her personal beliefs about gender and IT were not a good fit for the goals of the program and she did not seem to embody the motivated, creative, skilled IT teacher assumed as a prerequisite for the program to be successful.
Alice, the Bartik Digital Divas program teacher, was enthusiastic, confident and well versed in the requirements of the program, not least because she wrote the teaching modules. While she believed boys were more enthusiastic than girls about computers, she thought that confidence and competence and the appeal of IT tasks depended upon individual circumstances rather than the gender of a student. Alice was much closer to the teacher envisaged for the program.
School Community Attitudes about IT
The attitudes of the Goldstine, Bartik and wider Victorian communities were compared and statistically significant differences in mean scores were found for only one item: ‘People have to be very hard-working if they want to work in the computer industry’. Post-hoc comparisons indicated that the mean score for the wider Victorian community (mean = 2.91) was significantly different from the mean scores for the Goldstine community (3.53), and the Bartik community (3.26), indicating that while the members of the Goldstine and Bartik communities agreed that people have to be very hard working if they want to work in the computer industry, members of the wider Victorian community were unsure.
As only one statistically significant difference was found between the three community groups, the results are discussed together as one
‘combined’ community, with any differences within individual communities highlighted.
The majority of the combined community believed there was no gender difference with regard to IT. When community members did perceive a gender difference, however, it was strongly in favour of boys. The combined community recognised that IT jobs were enjoyable, although difficult, paid well, and required team work – all positive views about IT jobs. They also believed, however, that long hours at a computer were involved, which may lead to health problems. They imagined IT people to be unpopular males with few interests outside computing.
Within the Bartik community, however, not all sub-groups (parents, teachers, and peers – male and female) were in agreement, with the following statistically significantly differences in mean scores:
• Bartik male peers (mean = 3.36) agreed but Bartik female peers disagreed (2.44) that boys are better than girls at working with computers, and, although not statistically significantly different, Bartik male peers (3.18) agreed that boys are more suited than girls to work in the computer industry, while Bartik female peers (2.63) disagreed. The data suggest that Bartik male peers were more stereotyped in their attitudes toward IT than the female peers.
• Bartik teachers (3.57) and peers (3.58) agreed that computing professionals have a lot of outside interests while Bartik parents (2.87) disagreed.
• Bartik teachers (3.47) and peers (3.67) agreed that people have to be very hard-working if they want to work in the computer industry while Bartik parents (2.81) disagreed.
• Bartik peers (3.52) agreed that a person who works in computing makes a lot of money while Bartik parents (2.84) and teachers (2.93) disagreed slightly.
These results indicate quite different ideas about IT people and careers within the Bartik community.
Employment in the computer industry was a contentious issue across the community. The Goldstine and Bartik parents were all unsure whether they would like their sons or daughters to have jobs in the computer industry.
Parents from the wider Victorian community, however, were statistically significantly more likely to agree that they would like their sons to have jobs in the computer industry than their daughters.
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Among the peers, Goldstine community male and female peers, and Bartik male peers, were unsure whether they would like to have a job in the computer industry. Bartik female peers, however, disagreed that they would like a computer job. These attitudes present in the community were not supportive of one of the main goals of the program: to encourage future involvement in IT among the participants.
From the community surveys and interviews, positive attitudes about the importance of computing at school were found across all the community groups. All groups and sub-groups in the combined community believed that computers make learning more enjoyable. All communities also agreed that computing is interesting. There was also positive recognition that parents and teachers were supportive of student computer use. In particular, the communities agreed that schools were enthusiastic about students using computers. These attitudes were pleasing to see and consistent with the program goals.
Within the Goldstine community, parents (4.07) and teachers (4.11) agreed statistically significantly more strongly than peers (3.50) that the school is enthusiastic about students using computers. A possible explanation could be that because the computer activities the peers would like to engage in at school are not the same as those that the schools or their parents would like or expect them to be engaged in. In addition, although not statistically significant, Goldstine male peers (4.13) agreed much more strongly than female peers (3.33) that computing is very interesting, revealing attitudes in accordance with the stereotype that IT is a male domain.
Among the Bartik community sub-groups, teachers (4.40) agreed significantly more strongly that the school was enthusiastic about students using computers than were parents (3.65) or peers (3.52); and peers (3.96) indicated statistically significantly stronger agreement than Bartik teachers (3.20) that computing was interesting.
On the whole, community attitudes toward IT were fairly positive and there was shown to be strong support for student computer use, these views were consistent with program goals. However, beliefs in negative IT stereo-types were held by some members of the community, particularly with regard to the gender, isolation, unpopularity, and health of IT people, as well as the long hours involved in a difficult career. This perhaps provides a reason for the uncertainty about future student involvement in IT careers found across the community groups. The Goldstine community showed the most consistent views across sub-groups, while in the Bartik community there were quite varied attitudes across the sub-groups.