Gender inequality is a global problem present in all facets of life to a greater or lesser degree. In the fields of Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, both in career and work contexts, the gender gap continues. The percentage of women who study or work in the technology sector is around 25% according to different international reports. The incorporation of gender studies in the curricula is considered one of the main actions to close the gender gap in tertiary education. Education programs should approach conceptual mismatches between gender or sex and change its foundations to guarantee equal education for any person by limiting the influence of social stereotypes and dominant culture. There are few studies that aim at describing what is the main stream viewpoints among students from research instruments previously validated. This work describes the process to elaborate a questionnaire on gender perspectives and its validation in order to describe what students of Computer Engineering careers think and what changes can be implemented accordingly in future education programs to close the gender gap.

1. Inclusion of gender perspective in Computer
Engineering careers
Alicia García-Holgado,
Juanjo Mena, Francisco J. García-Peñalvo
GRIAL Research Group, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
aliciagh@usal.es, juanjo_mena@usal.es, fgarcia@usal.es
Carina González
University of La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
cjgonza@ull.edu.es
Elaboration of a questionnaire to assess the gender gap in Tertiary Education

2. Index
1. Introduction
2. Objective
3. The questionnaire
4. Pilot experience
5. Data collection
6. Validation process
7. Results
8. Conclusions
9. Current works
10. Acknowledgements
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3. 1. Introduction (I)
• According to Buquet Corleto the incorporation of gender studies in
the curricula is considered a factor that favors the process of
institutionalization of the gender perspective in higher education
• Academic learning can be more inclusive oriented by providing
them with new theoretical and methodological elements for the
understanding of social reality
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4. 1. Introduction (II)
• In Spain, since 2005/2006, the 54,1% of the total university
students are women but only 25.8%, in the field of Engineering
and Architecture
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5. 2. Objective
• To have an overview of the gender gap in Computer Engineering
degrees with the ultimate purpose of introducing the gender
perspective in the syllabus as a cross-curricular skill
• Elaboration of a questionnaire (GENCE questionnaire) about the
inclusion of the GENder perspective in Computer Engineering
• Application to a pilot sample
• Validation of the questionnaire
EDUCON2018

6. 3. The questionnaire
• A 33-item questionnaire to measure the extent to which the students
were aware of the gender issues in their own career
• The questions were divided into 10 demographics items, 12 open items
and 12 multiple choice items
• The first version of this instrument is available in
https://repositorio.grial.eu/handle/grial/929
• Based on the script of the interviews carried out in the Spanish project
"Pathways of technological life and gender: psychosocial factors involved
in access to computer engineering degrees" and in the questionnaire
used in the project "Strengthening the Gender Equality in Higher
Education in Colombia"
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7. 4. Pilot experience (I)
• It has been carried out in a compulsory course in the Degree in
Computer Engineering of the University of Salamanca (Spain)
during the 2016/2017 academic year
• It was apply in a group of 72 student where 10 are women (13.89%)
• Several activities were carried out to include the gender
perspective as part of the course
EDUCON2018

8. 4. Pilot experience (II)
• Information about
gender studies,
emphasizing those
topics related to
the technological
field, was shared
on Twitter under
the hashtag
#is1usal17
(https://twitter.co
m/hashtag/is1usal
17)
EDUCON2018

9. 4. Pilot experience (III)
• Materials, in particular class diagrams, were modified to be more
inclusive
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10. 4. Pilot experience (IV)
• The problems proposed to students to be solved during the whole
course using UML diagrams were related technological solutions to
reduce gender gap
• Additional information was provided to set the background of the
problem
• The final assignment consisted in designing a web portal to
promote the visibility of women in the STEM context
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11. 5. Data collection
• Anonymity was guaranteed
• Initially the questionnaire was answered
online by 55 students
• The data were invalidated when the link to
the questionnaire was made public in an
internet forum
• The same instrument was applied again
during non-school hours, but in printed
format to avoid the previous problem
• Under this format only 9 responses were
collected
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• A second application (also in print) was
conducted during non-school hours
and 23 answers were obtained,
although one of them was not fully
completed

12. 6. Validation process (I)
• First a Cronbach’s alpha reliability test was calculated to measure
the internal consistency of the instrument
• Second, experts’ validation:
1. Provide guidelines to the experts;
2. select the experts;
3. collect each answer –via online- and
4. applied Kendall’s W statistic to measure the interrater
agreement
EDUCON2018

13. 6. Validation process (II)
• Five experts were asked to reach consensus on certain decisions
affecting the content of the items
• The five experts had more than 10 years of working experience in
their fields (their age ranged from 40 to 60 years old)
• Two are from Mexico and three from different parts of Spain
• Three belong to the social sciences domain (one specialist in
gender and other two in pedagogy) whereas the other two to
software and computer engineers
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14. 7. Results (I)
• The general interpretation of Cronbach’s alpha on a Likert scale is
a ³ 0.8 is excellent; a= 0.6- 0.8, Acceptable; a=0.4-0.6= poor; a £
0.4, unacceptable
• We obtained a score of a= 0.316 which
inform us that the items of the questionnaire
are not internally consistent because the
items correlations are generally low
• The plausible solution would be to rephrase the actual questions
and add some more to the questionnaire
EDUCON2018

15. 7. Results (II)
• The 14 items of the scale were independently measured from 1=
totally disagree to 7= totally agree by each of the five experts
• each item was scored in three predefined dimensions: (1) content
adequacy; (2) clear formulation; (3) and target population
addressing
• Kendall’s W coefficient range from 0 (complete disagreement) to 1
(complete agreement)
EDUCON2018
Dimensions Kendall’s W Interpretation
Content adequacy 0.25
Moderate
agreement
Clear formulation 0.16 Weak agreement
Target population
addressing
0.29
Moderate
agreement

16. 7. Results (III)
• The five experts did not applied the same standards to value the
items
• We need to take into the account that we are trying to measure a
highly complex process that implies not only showing personal
views, but surfacing feelings and lining identities
• We sent them a short description of the instrument we were
elaborating but without entering any debate or personal
explanation
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17. 8. Conclusions
• In tertiary education, the problem is not about STEM but about
gaining greater visibility of women who study technical careers
• The pilot experience developed in a course of the Computer
Engineering career of the University of Salamanca (Spain) has
allowed to collect data in order to validate the GENCE questionnaire
• There are not enough evidences to reject the null hypothesis in
both tests
• The results of the validation process provide the necessary
information to redefine the questionnaire in order to have a more
solid and reliable instrument
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18. 9. Current works
• Currently we are working to redefine the questionnaire applying
the observations provided by the five experts
• We are carried out other pilot in the same course with different
students, in particular 57 students where 8 are women (14%)
• We will apply the second version of GENCE questionnaire at the
end of the course
EDUCON2018

19. 10. Acknowledgments
• This research work is part of a teaching innovation project entitle
"Inclusion of the gender perspective in the Software Engineering:
Module 1" (Id number: 2016-084) funded by the University of
Salamanca (Spain) in the 2016/2017 academic year
• The authors would like to thank the experts involved in the
validation process
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20. EDUCON2018

21. Inclusion of gender perspective in Computer
Engineering careers
Alicia García-Holgado,
Juanjo Mena, Francisco J. García-Peñalvo
GRIAL Research Group, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
aliciagh@usal.es, juanjo_mena@usal.es, fgarcia@usal.es
Carina González
University of La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
cjgonza@ull.edu.es
Elaboration of a questionnaire to assess the gender gap in Tertiary Education