 | Journal of Instructional Science and Technology ISSN: 1324-0781 Editors-in-Chief: Olugbemiro JEGEDE (jegede@ouhk.edu.hk) and Som NAIDU(s.naidu@meu.unimelb.edu.au) |
Volume 1 No 2, March 1996
- - - Article 2 - - -
by
Dirk H. R. Spennemann
Johnstone Centre of Parks, Recreation and Heritage
Charles Sturt University
Albury N.S.W. Australia
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The survey of environmental science students at Charles Sturt University studying both in internal and external mode, has shown that the low socio-economic standing of women is carried through to the ownership and access to computers. The observed differences are very severe, clearly setting the women students at a disadvantage. These data seem to confirm the fear that the current economic imbalances between the genders will translate into imbalances in information access and information manipulation, thus resulting in ongoing, or even exacerbated inequity.
A brave new world of communications on the information superhighway shows much promiseof becoming the great leveller, allowing anybody with access to a server to develop anumber of documents and to project a presence well beyond the local arena, to achievetruly global exposure. Brick and mortar infrastructure are a matter of the past, thebright future relying on information and style - as well as on the rapid turnover andreplenishment of data.
But is the World Wide Web the great leveller, or are existing social and economicequalities merely ported to the new medium, without any levelling at all. Or, moredisturbingly, are existing inequalities compounded and exacerbated by the need to own aWWW capable computer. Are we faced with the development of a class of information-richcitizens compared to a class of have-nots, "infoplebs" so to speak? And whatabout the implications for distance education developed on the WWW? As we prepare todevelop distance education packages on the WWW we need to take such equity issues intoconsideration.
This paper addresses the gender representation on the WWW and the use of computers bythe two genders: are there systematic differences or not? The observations are thencontrasted with a population of internal and distance education students at Charles SturtUniversity.
There can be little doubt that there is a strong sense of anarchy on the World WideWeb. At present, the 'infobahn' is a free-for-all: everybody can publish web pages withoutspatial or social distinctions, as long access to a server is available. Despite thisapparent anarchy on the web there is a clear domination by a small peer group ofprofessional males. This issue is of concern to EEO professionals across the world (
A brief perusal of the Electronic Proceedings of the Second World Wide WebConference '94: Mosaic and the Web held in October 1994 in Chicago (NCSA1994) shows that, at rough count, of over 550 gender-identifiable author names 85%were those of men and only 15% were of women. Similar data were collected from theprograms of the 1st WWW conference held in May 1994 in Geneva, the 3rd WWW conference heldin April 1995 in Darmstadt and the Asia-Pacific WWW conference held in September 1995 inSydney (table 1). The methodology employed is objective as it collected the totality ofauthors. The only bias encountered is that it tends to count multiple papers authored orc-authored by the same author as separate entries. However, it only identifies WWW researchersas opposed to authors of HTML pages or even users and thus tends tooveremphasise the academic members of the WWW community.
These figures, however, correspond nicely with the observation by Strok(1992) that 13% of papers submitted to the journal IEEE Expert were written bywomen.
Table 1 Gender of speakers and paper (co-)authors at World Wide WebConferences. The category 'origin of speakers' refers to the predominant origin, ignoringexceptions
| Sample | Date | Males | Females | n | Origin of speakers |
| 1st WWW Conference | May '94 | 90% | 10% | 89 | Europe, USA |
| 2nd WWW Conference | Oct '94 | 85% | 15% | 550 | USA |
| 3rd WWW Conference | Apr '95 | ~86% | ~14% | 156 | Europe, USA |
| AP WWW Conference | Sep '95 | 84% | 16% | 99 | Australia, USA |
A data set from Australia shows that of the 16,733 members of the Australian ComputerSociety, a professional body of information scientists and managers 17% were women (datapers. comm. Jim McKinnon 1995). This figure tallies well with thenumber of women speaking at the 1995 AP WWW Conference. However, that conference eventallows us to compare the gender composition of the speakers/authors with that of theattendees. Of the registered 842 attendees 23% were women (i.e. had genderidentifiable first names are titles). This represents a 7% increase over the number womenpublishing research about the WWW.
A different approach was taken by the global WWW user survey conducted by Mika Rissa& Co Oy during a 30 days period in December 1994 and January 1995. The surveyconducted via forms over the Internet, found that of 547 self reporting answers, 10.2%were women (Rissa 1995). A survey by Turnpike Demographics ( It is of significance to note that the 3rd WWW survey did not find any significantdifference between the incomes of male and female respondents. As this runs contradictoryto the socio-economic differential of the two genders also in the USA, some caution needsto be exerted. The low representation of women in the 3rd WWW survey, combined with therelatively high income would indicate that the sample of women respondents is notrepresentative of the female computer user population, but that bias has occurred. One ofthe problems inherent in the 3rd WWW survey is that it relies on a self-reportingmechanism, which obviously preselects those interested in the survey. In addition, sincethe instrument resided on the web it is a good indicator of the web usage, but not ofcomputer usage overall. All of these data sets confirm each other, stating that the web use among women wasabout 10% in 1994 and about 15-19% in late 1995, membership/access growing a rateoutpacing that of men. The publishing house O'Reilly and Associates surveyed internet users in early 1995 ( Cultural Resource Management (PKM 266) is a compulsory (core) subject in the parksmanagement degree offered in Spring internal and external mode by the School ofEnvironmental and Information Science, Faculty of Science and Agriculture.(Albury Campus).The Bachelor of Applied Science (Parks, Recreation and Heritage) has a high reputation inthe industry and is the preferred degree for parks rangers and local government parksmanagement staff. First preferences regularly far outstrip the available quota. CSU is themajor service provider for Queensland's Department of Environment and Heritage, andofficial service provider for NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. The parksmanagement student population falls into two parts, those students studying inface-to-face mode at Albury campus, and those students studying in distance educationmode. The majority of the students have a science background and are primarily interested inthe 'traditional' ranger tasks, such as wildlife, vegetation and parkland management. Thisholds especially true for the school leavers (internal students) who have not yet beenexposed to the realities of the work force requirements. The male to female students ratiois close to 1:1 in the internal student population of the core subject PKM 266, but morethan 2:1 in the external population. Similar observations have been made for the 1993/94population (Spennemann in press). The average age of the external students is 30.45 ± 7.09 (n=64), while that of theinternal students is 20.92 ± 3.07 (n=55). Among external students the women tend to be 5years younger than the males, compared to an age difference of only a year among internalstudents. The questionnaire The questionnaire was handed out to all internal students by hand and placed into allstaff mailboxes. Missing responses were followed by up by gentle reminders. Thequestionnaires were mailed to the external students. A fair number were returned soonafter, while some were included with the first assignment. The outstanding questionnaireswere resolicited at residential school. All these measures led to the following totalreturn rates: As the university provides staff with world wide web capable computers or access tosuch machines, the staff data have been excluded from the analysis on computer access. The general level of computer ownership (table 1) shows that among the internalstudents 47% of all male students do not own a computer, while the same is true for 58% ofthe female students. Among the external student population only 27% of the male, but 50%of the female students do not own a computer. It is clear that the level of computerownership reflects the socio-economic differential between men and women. As has beendocumented at length, women tend to occupy professions which have a lower standing insociety - and a lower remuneration for the services rendered. Even where equivalent jobsare held, women tend to earn less. As the result of these factors the pre-tax averageincome of Australian women in paid employment is $30,062.24 p.a., compared with $37,923.60for the males, i.e. on average 79.3% of a male's income (McLennan 1995).With an average cost of $2,500 for 486-based machine, women do not have the disposableincome to afford it even if they have the inclination. Table 1 Type of computers (by processor type) owned by the samplepopulation We have in hand some income data for the external student population collected during asurvey of those attending residential school in 1995. That study found the annual incomeof the student population queried to be varied with no direct correlation between the ageof students and their income group. A large number of students had an income under $15k.The greatest number of students have an income between $25k and $30k, followed by thoseearning between $35k and $40k. The income distribution is more skewed if we look at genderwith the majority of female students belonging to the low income group (Spennemann1995). However, the issue is not limited to mere ownership of the computer. Indeed, the typeof processor in the machine and its clock-speed determines whether a machine is capable ofrunning multi-media packages delivered over the WWW in a satisfactory fashion. To assessthe implications, all machines were reclassified into those being 386-equivalent or slowerand those 486-equivalent or better (table 2). Even though 386 based machines are capableof running WWW browsers the do so at a very slow speed. As the operating systems grow inneeds of RAM, the web browsers become more powerful and by implication unfortunately alsomore demanding w.r.t. RAM. This, then, leads to these machines becoming even moreunsuitable. Table 2 Suitability of the computers owned by the sample populationfor use with multimedia applications At this level, then, gender imbalances are exacerbated. Among the internal students29.6% of the male, but only 7.3% of the female students possess WWW capable computers.Among the external students the percentage of WWW capable machines is much higher amongmales (48.6%), but even lower among females (6.3%). This differential between the twogenders appears to have been caused by the fact that women own computers which have beenhanded down from their partners or from their parents (in the case of the younger,internal students). As the slower speed of the machines implies longer connect times to servers and thushigher communications charges will result. These higher charges are born by members of thecommunity who are economically weak and thus less likely to afford it. Thus the relianceon 386 machines represents a double penalty. It is of significance to note that the ownership of WWW capable machines among femalestudents at CSU is less than half of the participation rate of women on the WWW. The use of the World Wide Web, however, does not require the ownership of acomputer, but merely access to use. Access being defined as the ability to use a computerfor prolonged period of time but not necessarily at the student's choice of time. Of thestudent population queried, 4-6% stated that they do not have access to a computer at all(table 3). Of those having access, 75% of internal students mentioned that they had accessto WWW capable machine. This should in fact be 100%, as these machines are installed inthe computer centre available for free use. Among the external population 80% of the malestudents claimed access to such machines, compared to 52% of the female students. Amongexternal students the gender imbalance remains large, even though not as blatant as whenmere ownership is considered. Nevertheless, the reduced level of access among femalestudents should give rise to concerns. Table 3. Suitability of the computers accessible to the samplepopulation for use with multimedia applications For the majority of the internal students the access to this machine is at the University computer center, with over 32% of the males students claiming to have access to this type of machine at home (table 4). The majority of the external students claims access at home (50%), followed by machines at work (30%). By comparison, only 11% of the female students studying externally access machines at work, while 33% have access to them at home and another 33% at their relatives. Table 4. Location of the mostpowerful machine accessible to the sample population * This figure is of concern as all internal students would have access to the computer center's machines. It is posited that women use computers as tools rather than 'toys', are less interestedin exploring the medium, less persistent in attempting to learn new technology and thusare in more need of computer training and support (Cunningham 1994,Ives 1995). To test the validity of this hypothesis for the CSUEnvironmental Science students, students were asked whether they enjoyed trying out newcomputer programs (table 5). The figures show up some interesting differences: whilst 71%(74%) of the male internal (external) students enjoyed trying out programs, only 63% (67%)of the female respondents claimed the same. While this is a more than 7% systematicdifference between the two genders, it is not statistically significant at the 99% level.More remarkable is that among the internal population 18.5% of the women stated that thedid not enjoy trying out programs, while none of the male students made the sameassertion. The differences among the external population are not as marked. Theexpectation had been that if there would be significant difference between the two gendersw.r.t. this issue, it would have been among the external students. Table 5. Level of enjoyment derived from working with new computerprograms The attitudes of women to computers are not uniform, however, and we need to abstainfrom oversimplification. For example, a study by Grangenett etal. (1992) found that women are more anticipatory of the use of multimedia forlearning than men. The survey of environmental science students at Charles Sturt University. studying bothin internal and external mode, has shown that the socio-economic standing of women iscarried through to the ownership and access to computers. The observed differences arevery severe, clearly setting the women students at a disadvantage. These data seem toconfirm the fear that the current economic imbalances between the genders will translateinto imbalances in information access and information manipulation, thus resulting inongoing, or even exacerbated inequity. While it can be said that the younger generation of female students is much more likelyto own a computer than the mature-aged group, their computers tend to be hand-me-downmodels of slower speed, unsuitable for extensive work on the WWW. I addition, thisgeneration of Environmental Science Students appears to be less prepared to experimentwith computer programs than the mature age female student population. Jane Downing (Albury), John S. Atkinson (CSU, Albury); Jim McKinnon (Australian Computer Society)
A limited sample (n=66) German research run on the WWW using a self-reporting mechanismhad 7.6% female respondents (Batinic 1995). The 3rd World WideWebusers survey conducted during April 1995 (GVU Center 1995) which foundthat:
It is clear, however, that the percentage of self-reporting women has increased from thesecond to the third user survey. The third survey has also shown that there isconsiderable variation between Europe and the United States.A case study
The sample population
One of the problems inherent in many surveys of student's attitudes to computers and tocomputer-assisted learning is that they rely on information studies students as a sample.But it can be expected that information sciences students will possess a positive attitudetowards computers, that they exhibit a predisposition to technology and hence represent abiased sample.
Ownership of computers
Males Females EXT INT EXT INT CPM 0.00 3.70 0.00 0.00 086/68000/Amiga 4.44 7.41 0.00 7.69 286/69020 6.67 3.70 12.50 7.69 386/68030 13.33 14.81 31.25 19.23 486/68040 46.67 29.63 6.25 7.69 Pentium/PowerMac 2.22 0.00 0.00 0.00 Unix 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 none 26.67 40.74 50.00 57.69 Total (n) 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 Total (%) 45 27 16 26
Males Females EXT INT EXT INT Multimedia incapable 24.44 29.63 43.75 34.62 Multimedia capable 48.89 29.63 6.25 7.69 Do not own a computer 26.67 40.74 50.00 57.69 Total (%) 100 100 100 100 Total (n) 45 27 16 26 Access to computers
Males Females EXT INT EXT INT Multimedia incapable 13.33 20.83 41.18 25.00 Multimedia capable 75.56 75.00 52.94 75.00 Do not own a computer 6.67 4.17 5.88 0.00 Total (%) 100 100 100 100 Total (n) 45 24 17 24
Males Females EXT INT EXT INT none 4.35 0.00 5.56 * 0.00 at home 50.00 32.14 33.33 11.11 relatives 4.35 0.00 33.33 0.00 work 30.43 0.00 11.11 3.70 friends 0.00 7.14 0.00 7.14 university 2.17 57.14 11.11 85.19 no answer 6.52 3.57 5.56 0.00 Total (%) 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 Total (n) 46 28 18 27
Males Females EXT INT EXT INT Do not enjoy trying out programs 8.70 0.00 11.11 18.52 Enjoy trying out programs 73.91 71.43 66.67 62.96 Have better things to do 13.04 25.00 22.22 14.81 No answer 4.35 3.57 0.00 3.70 Total (n) 46 28 18 27 Conclusions
Acknowledgements
References
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Published by the University of Southern Queensland