Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has received an ITWF award to study the experiences of undergraduate women in departments of Information Technology (IT). Most research to date into women's experiences in undergraduate computing programs has focused on Computer Science departments. While IT programs have cast themselves as qualitatively different from traditional CS, it is not clear whether women's experiences in these programs are more positive than in CS, where retention of female students has been consistently problematic.
The study will be done in two parts. The first will be a qualitative study of all women, and a sample of men, entering the IT department at RIT as freshmen. These women will be interviewed upon entrance into the program, at the end of their first quarter, and at the end of the academic year. Based on the information gained in that study, key factors related to women's persistence or attrition will be identified. The second part of the study will be the development of questionnaires for faculty and students intended to identify the presence and influence of those actors in academic departments. The questionnaire will then be administered at departments of IT across the US, in order to determine whether the factors identified at RIT can be generalized across institutions.
