Gender biases in assignments for Computer Organization and Reasoning and Logic at the TU Delft

Abstract

The field of Computer Science is male-dominated. This means that there is a large lack of female representation. This causes women to be less interested in CS and have a lower sense of belonging. This lower sense of belonging does not only increase the already existing gender gap, it also has an impact on women’s performances in CS. A lack of women in education causes a lack of women in the professional field. Education therefore plays an important part in decreasing the gender gap. This study aims to investigate potential gender biases in assignments of first-year courses for Computer Science and Engineering at the TU Delft. This study analyzes assignments from two courses based on four heuristics: The gender of characters and the way they are portrayed, gender-neutral pronouns, Whether assignments relate to People or Things, and The opportunities for collaboration and competitiveness. This paper shows that both courses suffer from a lack of story-based assignments. This lack of story-based assignments causes a lack of social relevance as well as a lack of characters and personal pronouns. Both courses allow for collaboration. Despite allowing collaboration, Computer Organization also has competitive elements in its assignments. This paper recommends that Computer Science courses use more story-based assignments.