Does a Wikipedia-based assignment increase self-efficacy among female students? A qualified maybe

Abstract

Wikipedia has become one of the most used reference works, by students, educators, academics, and the general public, and there is a growing body of research exploring when and how students use the online encyclopedia. A smaller body of work examines the role of Wikipedia as a pedagogical tool for teaching information literacy and subject-matter expertise. Yet, despite the ubiquitous nature of the resource on campus, there remains a well-documented gender gap in contributions to the site. We build on previous scholarship to explore how the use of Wikipedia as a pedagogical tool can improve female self-efficacy and bridge the gender gap prevalent in contributions to open access resources. A survey of two undergraduate political science courses suggests an assignment in which students create original content for Wikipedia increases confidence in using the platform and information-seeking behavior among both female and male students, although the advantages continue to be greater for men. Furthermore, while female students are more confident in creating content after the Wikipedia assignment, once accounting for confidence there appears to be no significant difference between male and female contributions to Wikipedia. Because the assignment does lead to slight increases in confidence for women, however, it could be considered a promising first step in increasing female contributions to the site and the confidence of female students in evaluating information, more generally. We also include assignment details and recommendations for implementation.

Keywords:

• Wikipedia
• open access
• student information seeking behaviors
• gender gap

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Full data available at https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US

2 The survey was approved by Bowling Green State University IRB on September 5, 2018. IRBNet ID# 1308626.

3 As some of the students in the course were not yet 18, these students could not complete the survey and were given an alternate assignment of equivalent length to earn the five extra credit points.

4 Survey respondents were presented with the option to self-either male, female, or other. All respondents self-identified as either male or female. This approach captures their gender identity, rather than sex, as recent research posits gender to be a more appropriate construct than sex at birth in studies of technology self-efficacy (see Abbiss 2011; Huffman et al. 2013).

5 This approach also helps mitigate the multiple comparisons problem that exists in this type of analysis, and the multilevel approach produces more efficient (see Gelman et al. 2012).

6 Students were also provided with online tutorials, hard copy tutorials provided by Wikipedia, and hard copy tutorials designed by the instructors. The Wiki Education Foundation makes a number of online resources available to instructors and students (for example, the student training modules here: https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/students). There are also Wikipedia experts assigned to the course to help with technology issues, but they were also unable to recall lost passwords or missing work, so they did not provide the kind of assistance students were interested in and therefore did not prove terribly helpful.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicole Kalaf-Hughes

Nicole Kalaf-Hughes is Associate Professor of Political Science at Bowling Green State University. She teaches courses in American politics and institutions, research methods, and race and ethnic politics, using a variety of pedagogical approaches. Her research is in the area of American political institutions, legislative behavior, and race, gender, and ethnicity.

R.G. Cravens

R.G. Cravens is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at California Polytechnic State University. He teaches courses in American politics, political theory, public policy, and LGBTQ politics. His research focuses on LGBTQ political behavior and policy.