Gender Imbalance in Undergraduate IT Programs – A Vietnamese Perspective

Abstract

The issue of gender imbalance in computing professions and higher education programs is well documented. The specific contextual reasons for the observed disparity are less well documented and in Vietnam are until now unrealized. There are a number of social, political, personal and historical factors that influence female enrollment into IT programs at university and there is no single global scenario. This paper discusses the trends and barriers around the world and examines the gender imbalance in an undergraduate IT course at a Vietnamese campus of an Australian university. A number of initiatives and key success factors for closing the gender gap are presented.

Keywords:

• Information technology
• gender
• Vietnam

Introduction

There has been a measured gender imbalance in students enrolling in computing and related degrees since the early 1980s. Research suggests that the average participation of females in undergraduate cohorts is between 15–30% (Redwood-Sawyerr 1995, McGrath Cohoon & Baylor 2003, Mason et al. 2011).

The current gender imbalance in IT has not always been the norm, and appears to be a relatively new phenomenon following a significant shift over the immediate past generation of computer professionals. Questions regarding where all of the women went have been the focus of much research over at least the past ten years.

A number of factors have been identified and suggest that the current imbalance may in fact be a return to a natural equilibrium that was skewed by socio economic factors, rather than a decline in interest in computing by women. The following discussion provides an overview of a number of key factors that have somewhat served to obfuscate the true level of participation by choice.

During the Second World War, as the power of computers for such applications as cryptography and code breaking was being realized, the workforce in the fledgling computer industry was predominantly women (Bletchley Park 2011). This was a time when Alan Turing, to name but one seminal researcher, was developing his work in an industry consistently led by male influences. A key consideration when trying to understand the apparent high level of females in the IT industry at this time is that the war had taken the majority of available male workforce and women were recruited by the UK and US Governments to fill the gap. This was a scenario played out in many previously male-dominated occupations and it created a false impression that computing industry employees were predominantly female by choice.

After the Second World War, the return of males to the workforce combined with renewed interest in computers as machines and the growth of an industry around them changed workforce demographics from that point. The roles that women had played in the formative years were less of a focus as the war effort died down, and there was a greater concentration on implementing computers for industry automation, thus returning this profession back to a more male-dominated function.

Another complicating factor is that until the 1970s women were not encouraged to have careers. They would work until they got married, or at best until they had a child, and then were often pushed from the workforce into a domestic role in the home. The potential to engage in higher education or develop a career and become a leader in their field was simply non-existent for most. A natural consequence of this was that there were very few, if any, female role models and the attraction to the industry was minimized as a result.

Although the early computing professionals were women, the momentum has clearly not carried through to current times (Light 1999). Low female intake in computer science and IT degrees is argued to be a key factor in creating and maintaining this trend against females being employed in IT professions around the world. An analysis by Pretorius and de Villiers summarized studies from America, India, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand. All argued that as a direct result of reduced IT education, the number of females are under-represented in IT worldwide (Pretorius & de Villiers 2009). This is concerning as there are significant advantages for recruiting women in the IT workforce (Mason et al. 2011) including:

• Expert input to women’s only IT products.

• Addressing the shortage of IT workers.

• Providing female role models in IT.

Unfortunately, increasing the number of females in IT and Engineering is too often given low priority or neglected and hence the issue propagates and compounds over time (Mbarika et al. 2003, Mason et al. 2011).

Today, information technology, computing and software careers (both academic and industrial) are seen as a bastion of male-dominance, chauvinistic behavior and bigotry (National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics 2007). It is simply not believed to be an industry where females can feel comfortable and achieve career success. The first step towards resolving the gender imbalance is to encourage greater interest and enrollment in IT programs for females, then to provide a study and work environment in which females can succeed.

Research at RMIT Vietnam has identified a significant disparity between the numbers of males and females enrolling in its IT programs. Motivation for current research was derived from the realization that the measure of difference is not reflected in other similar universities or geographic contexts. The focus of the research presented herein was to better understand the global context and factors influencing female enrollment into IT programs and to identify initiatives to improve the gender balance.

Three hypotheses were developed:

1. The gender imbalance at RMIT Vietnam is attributable to factors associated with being a foreign university.

2. Vietnamese cohorts show a particular gender disparity as compared to other groups.

3. The identified disparity is an Australian issue that is being mirrored in an overseas campus of an Australian university.

International perspective

Although the focus of this work is the Vietnamese context an overview of global trends is provided to enable the stated hypotheses to be considered and comparisons to be drawn. A review of literature from each continent was performed and the relevant key points identified for each location are discussed in this paper. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nunc dapibus in sem a ultrices. Cras suscipit est id tempus egestas. Vestibulum nec iaculis libero, dapibus.

United States

In the mid 1980s there was a peak of enrollments in computer science degree programs in the United States. This was attributed to the Artificial Intelligence ‘boom’ and home microcomputers becoming readily available. The sharp drop in enrollments during the late 1980s and early 1990s is believed to have been caused deliberately by institutions themselves. “The decline in the number of computer science degrees was largely as a result of explicit steps taken by academic institutions to reduce computer science enrollments when it became impossible to hire sufficient faculty to meet demand” (Roberts et al. 2002, p85). The steps that were introduced at this point in time included:

• More stringent entry requirements.

• Adding new compulsory mathematics courses as requirements.

• Transforming introductory courses into filters such that only high calibre students continued.

Roberts et al. suggest that these strategies had a "disproportionately negative effect on enrollment by women and minorities" (Roberts et al. 2002, p85).

Studies in the United States show a decline in women studying computer science down from “a high of 37% in the 1985 to just 22% in 2005” (National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics 2007). Although enrollments and degrees awarded for computer science courses steadily increased, the number of females awarded degrees in these fields never recovered.

A recent report across all Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects shows differences between girl’s and boy’s studies at school and college (Hill et al. 2010). In 2005, girls on average earned 7.3 high school credits in Mathematics and Science compared to 7.1 for high school boys. These higher credits didn’t translate into enrollments in STEM subjects at college level with only 15.1% of female students enrolling in a STEM subject compared to 29.3% of male students across all ethnic groups. Interestingly, the report shows that Asian students are much more likely to enrol in STEM subjects (27.2% of female Asian students and 42.4% of male Asian students). Despite these figures across all STEM subjects, female enrollments in Computer Science bachelor degrees in the US have declined from 36% in the mid 1980s to 20% in 2006 (Hill et al. 2010).

The same report shows that the number of female doctoral degree recipients in Computer Science has dramatically increased from 0.3% in 1966 to 20.1% in 2006. Similar improvements can be seen for STEM subjects other than computer science (Hill et al. 2010). This suggests a greater academic commitment by females in the sciences and the potential to increase the number of role models if strategically managed.

South Africa

Pretorius and de Villiers report that women in the IT workforce in South Africa find it a challenge to balance family and work responsibilities (Pretorius & de Villiers 2009). This creates a reluctance to engage fully in any career, but has obvious impacts on IT specifically which is known for long working hours and having an on-going need for professional development to maintain skills and knowledge currency. Social pressure to conform to the traditional role of women as mothers and housewives also discourages women in South Africa and other countries from considering a career in IT (Medeiros 2005). Pretorius and de Villiers (2009) suggested there is evidence to suggest gender discrimination in the IT workforce in South Africa. Respondents to their survey claimed males in the IT industry are paid more and have a greater chance of promotion than females. This further reduces the interest in studying IT by women when the career benefits cannot be realized or enjoyed.

Europe

European data shows that female students are under-represented in STEM subjects. Data from the Eurostat database shows that in 2006 the proportion of enrolled female students across these subjects was just over 30% for the most ‘balanced’ country (in this case Denmark) (Universities UK 2009). For the same year only about 14–15% of STEM students were female in the Netherlands and Cyprus. Data for computing courses alone is even bleaker. In 2006, Denmark had a female enrollment of 17% and the Netherlands had a tiny 8.4% (Eurostat 2012). More recent data from the same database shows a slight improvement in female enrollments: in 2010 in Denmark, 22% of computing students were female, in the Netherlands 12% of computing students were female (Eurostat 2012).

The Open University in the UK has found that female enrollments in technology courses increased when the curriculum was developed to place technology in a wider or real-world context (Bissell et al. 2002). This suggests that study environment and curriculum design are important influences on program choice at the time of enrollment.

Asia

It is interesting to note that statistics on female participation in IT and enrollment into IT degrees are not the same around the world. There are some outlier pockets especially in Asia. For example, up to 50% of enrollments in computing degrees are female in Malaysia (Ng et al. 1998) and Information Systems courses in Hong Kong report near equal gender enrollments (Cockcroft & Cunningham 1994). Motivation for examining the Vietnamese context is therefore self-evident.

Success factors

To overcome the gender issue, the fundamental problem is how to break down the social belief that computer-related careers are for males. However, there is hope as many women have embraced opportunities to break the social norm in other fields that were once male-dominated, such as medicine and law (Siann & Callaghan 2001). There is growing consensus that a key success factor is having obvious female role models and mentors (Cockcroft & Cunningham 1994, Kim et al. 2011) both in industry and education. Some universities have obtained exceptions to equal opportunity laws to state a preference for applications from females when recruiting. Another important factor is in the contextualization of teaching practices to better meet the needs of female students. Women show a preference for hands-on research experiences that foster research competence and a cooperative working environment within a community atmosphere (Cockcroft & Cunningham 1994, Kim et al. 2011). These students value presenting their progress to an audience in order to gain feedback and to socialize their work. Teaching techniques should also include gender-neutral case studies, including the identification and integration of discussion on interesting careers in IT targeted for both genders (Cockcroft & Cunningham 1994). This cross-gender approach assists to reduce entrenched stereotyping. Once female enrollments start to rise then careful management is required to sustain the critical mass, otherwise momentum would be lost (Kim et al. 2011). It is also important through all of this that males not be ignored as the result could be the opposite scenario of too many females and too few males.

Vietnamese perspective

Vietnam is a country that has undergone significant change over the past four decades from a war ravaged country where many of the population were consumed with simply surviving, to a country that sees opportunity at every turn and where technology and innovation are keys to the future. Everyone is an entrepreneur and getting ahead is now the consuming driver, especially for young people.

Education is becoming a more common option for young Vietnamese, prompted by the influx of international organisations such as Intel, IBM, Fujitsu, Oracle, Microsoft, Digital, Ericsson, Nokia, and Compaq, and legislation including the Bilateral Trade Agreement with the US and the Asian Free Trade Agreement. All of this also increases the potential to work overseas, which is frequently a strong driver for decisions in a young demographic. The extent of growth and interest in education is demonstrated through the following graphs based on data from the World Bank (2012). The first demonstrates that the increase in university enrollments in Vietnam is not a result of population or key financial factors. When the overall increase is broken down, it reveals that there has been a proportional increase in male and female enrollments, which is interestingly mirrored in the number of female lecturers employed in the country (data for male lecturers was not available).

Figure 1 Vietnamese societal trends.

Figure 2 IT Program enrollment trends.

To meet the need for skilled professionals the number of universities and colleges offering a computing focused program has grown over the past ten years. There are currently 277 institutions with a total enrollment of 169,000 students, including 56,000 fresh students enrolling annually (Business Times 2012b).

The Vietnamese IT industry

Vietnam has approximately 1,000 software outsourcing and IT businesses with most being small-sized businesses of 10–30 employees. There were 120,000 employees working in software and IT services in 2011 which was a twenty-fold increase compared to 2002 (Business Times 2012b).

“In developed economies like the U.S. and European nations, IT accounts for some 7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), while the figure in Vietnam is less than 2 per cent” (Business Times 2012a). Although behind the world figures for GDP the annual growth rate was reportedly 25– 35% over the past ten years for this industry segment (Business Times 2012b). Due to this growth, the demand for IT specialists by outsourcers in particular has far exceeded the supply. As a result, local enterprises are experiencing 20% of their workforce constantly job hopping as they are lured away by promises of high wages and promotions often by international companies that are used to paying more for good human resources (Business Times 2012b).

Vietnamese culture and women’s roles

For centuries, Vietnamese women have been engaged in working class employment (Seller 1994). As in many other cultures, Vietnam defines women’s roles in terms of bearing children and taking care of their homes and family (Anderson 2010) however Vietnamese women are renowned to be very dedicated and hard working outside of the home also. Vietnamese women in the workforce are not uncommon and the traditional western norm of a housewife is not applicable to the majority of Vietnamese women. Over 21% of Vietnamese immigrants to the United States claimed to be the sole bread-winner, with only 14% of Vietnamese immigrant women reporting their occupation as a “housewife” (Seller 1994).

Another differentiator is the participation of women in direct warfare. The documented history of this phenomenon began with two sisters that began a resistance movement against the Chinese in 1000AD (Đại Việt 1991), (undocumented folklore suggests that there may have been even earlier female fighters around 60AD). They employed guerilla tactics and actively and successfully recruited many other women. Vietnamese women were also actively involved in the war with the US between 1959 and 1975 continuing an almost 1000 year history of guerrilla warfare and presenting a formidable foe. This suggests that Vietnamese women are not afraid of moving past the social norms for gender-based roles as seen in some other cultures.

Gender issues

A report by Wajcman and Lobb (2007) (considered to be the first systematic survey of Vietnam’s software industry) showed a relatively young industry but unfortunately with gender segmentation already firmly entrenched. Women are concentrated in areas which are considered less skilled resulting in a gender gap relating to pay and training and lowered career motivation. An interesting revelation was that although there are few women in higher management positions they were spread more evenly through the hierarchy as compared to other countries. Female staff members were however more likely to voluntarily switch from programming and engineering roles to less demanding positions such as documentation to avoid stress and overtime and meet family responsibilities and obligations (Wajcman & Lobb 2007).

Unfortunately due to the political and war-torn past, little systematic data collection has occurred making this an area of significant research interest. It is not possible to determine exact numbers of enrollments in IT over time and hence truly understand to what extent the gender issue affects higher education in the country. The RMIT Vietnam case study is presented and will discuss the issue of gender imbalance in IT from the perspective of an international university. RMIT Vietnam was founded in 2001 and was the first overseas university in Vietnam.

RMIT Vietnam perspective

RMIT International University is a foreign owned and operated Australian university with two campuses in Vietnam; one in Hanoi and the other in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). The instructional language is English, in a country where the national official language is Vietnamese. For the last six semesters, only five applications to the IT program have been made by non-Vietnamese students. The total number of applications to the program over this period was 108.

RMIT varies from its parent body in that it teaches across three semesters each year (denoted A, B or C). This enables relatively easy integration for students from either the northern or southern hemisphere where the school years are different. It also allows for a shortening of the overall duration of a degree program by eight months. This condensed format increases the number of graduates that enter the marketplace each year to meet the growing need described earlier.

The RMIT Centre of Technology is based in Ho Chi Minh City and offers both computing and engineering programs. It currently offers two degrees; a Bachelor of Information Technology (BIT) and Masters of Microelectronics and Computer Engineering, with others planned for the future. Class sizes are relatively low with an average class size of 20 and a maximum of 30 students, enabling a more student-focused teaching model to be applied. The Centre teaches with a mix of tutorials, laboratories and lectures, and integrates semester-long projects and industry internships into its IT programs. The total duration of the BIT is seven semesters or two years and four months.

The Bachelor of IT program is comprised of subjects that are common to all IT careers and reflect both industry needs and standard IT courses offered by other Australian universities. The focus is on software development and the program is a balance between programming intensive subjects such as C, C++, Java and PHP and other subjects including database concepts, software engineering, computer security, mobile applications and networking.

The gender balance

RMIT has maintained data throughout its time in Vietnam to enable trends in IT enrollment to be plotted and examined. Figure 3 shows cumulative male and female enrollments from 2003 to 2011 for the Bachelor of Information Technology program. The graph shows a significant disparity between male and female enrollments in RMIT Vietnam. Students choosing to study IT at RMIT are predominantly male with very few female students, and whilst the number of males has shown growth over time, the number of females has been relatively static. (The dip in numbers in 2005 was due to a change in program when there was a cessation in new enrollments for that year.)

Figure 3 IT Program - Enrolled students.

Figure 4 shows the number of graduations and the ratio of female to male graduands from the IT program. We can see that the female students, although only a small proportion of total enrollments, make up a significantly larger proportion of graduating students. The ratio of female to male enrolled students is on average 1:30, but the ratio of female to male graduands is generally between 1:3 and 1:10.

Figure 4 Graduation trends in IT.

Despite the academic success of female IT students, the program as a whole appears not to be attractive to female students. This may be because of a perception that IT is a male career choice, or due to a lack of female role models that students can look up to or relate to as discussed earlier. Anecdotal evidence to the contrary suggests that females feel that IT would be a good career choice as there is little heavy lifting and it pays well. Identifying the true cause of the observed disparity will be a focus for further research in this area.

The Masters of Engineering with a double major of electronics and computers has a female to male ratio of 1:12 in the first cohort, 2:21 in the second cohort and 1:18 in the third and most recent cohort. The engineering program is still maturing and data is limited, although it is emerging with similar gender issue as the Bachelor of IT program, but to a lesser degree.

Comparative analysis

To present the RMIT Vietnam trends in the broader context, a high level comparison to another foreign university (CMUA) is provided. CMUA offers a Masters in IT program and attracts enrollments from around the world with a focus on the Asia Pacific region. Experience by one of the authors identified that the discrepancy in gender experienced by RMIT Vietnam is not mirrored in this similar institution. Figure 5 provides a graphical overview of CMUA for comparison.

Figure 5 CMUA Enrollment by gender.

It can be seen that for Asia as a whole the enrollment ratio of females to males is 1:1.5 and for Vietnam is 1:0.89. This is a clear contrast to RMIT Vietnam data suggesting that the gender issue is not attributable to factors associated with a foreign university scenario or a Vietnamese cohort, which were both initial hypotheses.

Figure 6 shows enrollment by gender for another Australian university (Monash) from 2006–2008 across four computing undergraduate degrees (Shu-Hua 2010). The associated ratios of male to female students are BITS 3.97:1, BBIS 3.92:1, BSE 11.89:1 and BCompSci 8.88:1. Whilst there is an obvious disparity between males and females at Monash University, RMIT Vietnam is still falling well behind in terms of parity between the genders over the same time frame.

Figure 6 Monash University enrollment.

Across the whole of the Australian context international female enrollments represent an average of 19% of all international enrollments in IT. The third hypothesis that gender disparity is a feature of the Australian Higher Education sector generally is therefore open for further interrogation, although it is not as poor as suggested by RMIT Vietnam figures.

Experiences and observations

The authors collectively have over 25 years of experience working with Vietnamese students both in their homeland and overseas. During this extensive contact with these students a number of important observations have been made which help to inform on differences in classroom behaviors and engagement in IT programs by males and females. A number of key observations are presented.

The choice of IT.

Female students enrolled in IT often report that the decision to choose this career path is based on a genuine interest in computers, technology and social applications. Males however often describe their decision as being based on a chance to play with new technologies and games and earn good money. This suggests from the outset that females are often more dedicated to the potential of IT as a long-term career, suggesting that they may be willing to invest more during study, which is somewhat evidenced by our findings as discussed in relation to Figure 4. If we focus on programming which has been identified as an area presenting the greatest barrier to females, this theory is also supported by our analysis which identified that female students are less likely to withdraw from these subjects than males, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7 Grades and withdrawals (%) in second year programming 2009–2012.

Female students often enter their IT studies with a mindset that programming is difficult. However, we have found this is only a mental barrier rather than skill-based and once the student has managed to break through this block, they become more comfortable with programming and often achieve better than the males, again as shown in Figure 7.

Study patterns

Female students are observed to be more diligent and thorough when answering examination and assignment questions, often doing so in a detailed step by step manner. The outcomes seen in Figure 7 are a direct result of this methodical exam and assignment technique. In contrast, male students have a tendency to concentrate on selected exam sections and will often neglect or not even attempt other sections. Overall female RMIT IT students perform either average or above average throughout their degrees and actively identify and solve issues to ensure they satisfactorily complete each course without compromise. They also appear more disciplined than their male counterparts and have a more structured and strategic approach to their study than the males, again resulting in the outcomes shown earlier.

Discussion

The research presented here has likely raised more questions that it has answered.

There were three hypotheses developed at the outset of this research. That:

1. The gender issue is attributable to factors associated with being a foreign university.

2. Vietnamese cohorts show a particular gender disparity as compared to other groups.

3. The disparity is an Australian issue that is being mirrored in Vietnam.

What we have learned is that there appears to be significant, measurable differences in the way Vietnamese students engage in IT programs and this is not comparable across similar scenarios e.g. across foreign universities or Australian universities. Vietnamese cohorts also show significant differences across countries and universities suggesting that the nationality itself is not a contributing factor in the observed gender imbalance.

We have identified that female IT students enrolled in RMIT Vietnam are less likely to withdraw from the program than their male counterparts. Although the intake of female IT students is small, most of the female students graduate and finish the program successfully. This evidence counters the belief that females are less well suited to technology studies or have greater problems with the content presented in areas such as programming. This belief is little more than an urban myth and requires addressing at a societal level for sustainable improvements to be realized. The research presented here has identified females as an important source of high quality IT or Computer Science graduates, and a high achieving subsection of students that should be better understood and pursued.

RMIT Vietnam initiatives

The aim of the research presented herein is to understand the barriers and factors that influence the decision of females to enroll in higher education IT programs. We have identified that there are two phases in developing student engagement and both are equally important in achieving a greater gender balance in IT and computer science programs:

1. The enrollment process which is negatively impacted by the intrinsic effects of societal influence and group think.

2. The provision of a study environment more attuned to the needs of female students.

The following key points have been identified as important for success:

• Encouraging a more gender-neutral approach to teaching by using carefully selected case studies.

• Encouraging verbal sharing of ideas and work in the classroom.

• Promoting IT as a career choice to girls in high schools.

• Promoting the application of IT to more female-friendly industries, such as health and education.

• Encouraging the employment of high ranking female lecturers to provide positive role models.

RMIT is addressing each of these points through the following strategic initiatives:

• There are 30% females in the lecturing team and the new Head of Department is female, providing a strong role model.

• Female academics are well represented in all aspects of IT teaching including programming.

• An initiative is being developed to visit high schools to promote IT to girls with female representation as key feature of the promotions team.

• University marketing channels are being leveraged to promote IT as a career that allows a focus across any industry, including the more traditional female fields such as education, health, hospitality and retail.

• Female and male images are being integrated equally into all materials as the ‘face of IT at RMIT’.

• More female alumna are being invited to open days and promotional events to discuss career paths for females and create a more obvious gender balance in outward facing events.

Conclusions

Our research shows that Vietnamese women are very much capable of studying and performing well in IT, but enrollments are not in line with expectations. There are a number of factors influencing this, including societal pressures and inappropriate study environments and curricula. These are not location or culture specific. Universities including RMIT Vietnam need to be active in promoting IT as a female-friendly study option and career, both from the university perspective and in high schools, where decisions on university courses are often made. A number of initiatives to address this need by RMIT Vietnam have been presented in this paper and the results of implementing these will be eagerly awaited.