Gender balanced participants at outreach computing events

What is the Action?

Aim for a gender balanced participation at outreach computing events for prospective students.

Quick Facts to Support this Action

• Evidence of improved recruitment numbers following initiatives including outreach events, as well as positive student and participating schools’ feedback from a gender balanced Coding Academy organised by TU Dublin.

Seeing an existing gender balanced participants rates at computing events may inspire women to study computing, as it is easier to attract more female students as the female enrolment increases.

Ways to Implement this Action

When advertising for an outreach programming event on a relevant webpage (e.g., if it is a summer school, or a computing day) provide with a link to an application form that collects gender data.

Applications will be manually checked, and invitations sent to suitable applicants, also considering their gender declaration. As a result, if there are 50% of male participants accepted, the rest will comprise of female and other gender groups.

Evaluation Approach

Seeing applications among female students for third level courses who attended the event will be the most evident way to see impact of this action.

Also, a feedback survey to participants of the event is another way to understand whether the experience of the event was positive and whether gender balanced participation contributed towards it.

Proposed ideas for survey statements (options from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree):

• I noticed that the event had balanced participation between genders.

• The gender balance contributed to a more inclusive and welcoming environment.

• I felt comfortable participating and sharing my views during the event.

• The diversity of participants enriched discussions and activities.

• The gender balance positively influenced my perception of the computing field.

• I now believe more strongly that people of all genders can succeed in computing.

• This event increased my interest in pursuing computing studies or a career.

Receiving participants feedback from this action

A way to receive feedback is by distributing a feedback questionnaire asking for students’ for their career aspiration in computing before and after the event. An example of such a questionnaire can be found here https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9453992. Replies from female participants will be most relevant, especially if their career aspirations changed after the event.