Gender Differences in Students' Behaviors in CS Classes throughout the CS Major

Abstract

This paper presents results of a large-scale survey of students' experiences in CS classes at two institutions: a small liberal arts college and a large research-focused university. Our work provides a fine-grained view of students' feelings and behaviors in CS classes, from introductory through to upper division courses. We find significant differences between the reported behaviors and feelings of female students compared to male students: female students are less comfortable asking questions in class and interacting with their instructor, and come out of a class with lower confidence in their ability to tutor for the class, despite the fact that they perform just as well as male students. Furthermore, we find some of these differences are consistent or increase across course levels, and could potentially affect students' post-college trajectories. Focusing attention on the student experience in more advanced classes may impact gender differences seen in the transition to the CS workforce.