The Second Round: Diverse Paths Towards Software Engineering
Pages 29 - 36
Abstract
In the extant literature, there has been discussion on the drivers and motivations of minorities to enter the software industry. For example, universities have invested in more diverse imagery for years to attract a more diverse pool of students. However, in our research, we consider whether we understand why students choose their current major and how they did in the beginning decided to apply to study software engineering. We were also interested in learning if there could be some signs that would help us in marketing to get more women into tech. We approached the topic via an online survey (N = 78) sent to the university students of software engineering in Finland. Our results show that, on average, women apply later to software engineering studies than men, with statistically significant differences between genders. Additionally, we found that marketing actions have different impacts based on gender: personal guidance in live events or platforms is most influential for women, whereas teachers and social media have a more significant impact on men. The results also indicate two main paths into the field: the traditional linear educational pathway and the adult career change pathway, each significantly varying by gender.
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Index Terms
- The Second Round: Diverse Paths Towards Software Engineering
Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.
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Published In
April 2024
70 pages
ISBN:9798400705755
DOI:10.1145/3643785
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.
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Published: 18 September 2024
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