This study investigates the relationship between computer self-efficacy, mentoring, and the gender of mentors and students. The decline of women in IT-related programs of U.S. universities has led scholars to suggest that making more female faculty mentors available could raise female students' computer self-efficacy. This could address women's computational reticence and encourage more women to enter and remain in the programs. A survey of students from IT-related programs in five U.S. universities shows that extent of mentoring received, gender of students, and time students spent on computers as teenagers were significant predictors of computer self-efficacy. Extent of mentoring, gender of students, and gender of mentors have significant main effects on computer self-efficacy. Students with male mentors reported significantly higher computer self-efficacy while students with female mentors reported lower computer self-efficacy. Female students with no mentors reported the lowest level of computer self-efficacy.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AhujaM. (2002). Women in the information technology profession: A literature review, synthesis and research agenda. European Journal of Information Systems, 11(1), 20–34.
2.
AhujaM.HerringS. C.OganC., & RobinsonJ. C. (2004). Exploring antecedents of gender equitable outcomes in IT higher education. Proceedings of the 2004 SIGMIS Conference on Computer Personnel Research: Careers, Culture, and Ethics in a Networked Environment, 120–123.
3.
AhujaM.OganC.HerringS. C., & RobinsonJ. C. (2006). Gender and career choice determinants in information systems professionals: A comparison with computer science. In NiedermanF. & FarratT. (Eds.), IT workers: Human capital issues in a knowledge-based environment (pp. 279–304). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
4.
AldenL. (1987). Attributional responses of anxious individuals to different patterns of social feedback: Nothing succeeds like improvement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 100–106.
5.
BailynL. (2003). Academic careers and gender equity: Lessons learned from MIT. Gender, Work and Organization, 10(2), 137–153.
6.
BanduraA. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 19–215.
7.
BanduraA. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37, 122–147.
8.
BanduraA. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
9.
BanduraA. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control.New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.
10.
BanduraA. (1999). Social cognitive theory of personality. In PervinL. & JohnO. (Eds.), Handbook of personality (pp. 154–196). New York: Guilford Press.
11.
BanduraA. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26.
12.
BernsteinD. R. (1991). Comfort and experience with computing: Are they the same for women and men?SIGCSE Bulletin, 23(3), 57–60.
13.
BeyerS. (1990). Gender differences in the accuracy of self-evaluations of performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29(5), 960–970.
14.
BolanS. (2000). Women in IT on decline. Computing Canada, 26(22), 29.
15.
BowmanS. R.KiteM. E.BranscombeN. R., & WilliamsS. (1999). Developmental relationships of Black Americans in the academy. In MurrellA. J.CrosbyF. J., & ElyR. J. (Eds.), Mentoring dilemmas: Developmental relationships within multicultural organizations (pp. 21–46). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
16.
BurtonM. D. (1987). Gender differences in professional socialization: A study of women and men becoming computer scientists (technical report).Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University, Committee on Social Science Research in Computing, Social and Decision Sciences Department.
17.
CampT. (1997). The incredible shrinking pipeline. Communications of the ACM, 40(10), 103–110.
18.
CassidyS., & EachusS. (2002). Developing the computer user self-efficacy (CUSE) scale: Investigating the relationship between computer self-efficacy, gender and experience with computers. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 26(2), 133–153.
19.
CataldiE. M.FahimiM.BradburnE. M., & ZimblerL. (2005). 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty: Report on Faculty and Instructional Staff in Fall 2003. Retrieved July 22, 2005, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005172.pdf
20.
ClarkR. A.HardenS. L., & JohnsonW. B. (2000). Mentor relationships in clinical psychology doctoral training: Results of a national survey. Teaching of Psychology, 27(4), 262–268.
21.
CompeauD. R., & HigginsC. A. (1995). Computer self-efficacy: Development of a measure and initial test. MIS Quarterly, 19, 189–211.
22.
CompeauD. R., & HigginsC. A. (1999). Social cognitive theory and individual reactions to computing technology: A longitudinal study. MIS Quarterly, 23(2), 145–158.
23.
CunyJ., & AsprayW. (2000). Recruitment and retention of women graduate students in computer science and engineering. Retrieved May 24, 2004, from http://www.cra.org/reports/r&women.pdf.
24.
DreherG. F., & AshR. A. (1990). A comparative study of mentoring among men and women in managerial, professional, and technological positions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(5), 539–346.
25.
FailorB. (1990, Winter). The history of EYH. Math/Science Network Broadcast, 5.
26.
FrenkelK. A. (1990). Women and computing. Communications of the ACM, 33(11), 34–46.
27.
GappaJ., & LeslieD. (1993). The invisible faculty: Improving the status of part-timers in higher education.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
28.
HardingS. (1998). Is science multicultural? Postcolonialism, feminisms, and epistemologies.Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
HasanB. (2003). The influence of specific computer experiences on computer self-efficacy beliefs. Computers in Human Behavior, 19(3), 443–450.
31.
HerringS. C.OganC.AhujaM., & RobinsonJ. C. (2006). Gender and the culture of computing in applied IT education. Retrieved October 15, 2006, from http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/∼herring/gite.pdf.
32.
HicksonM. G. (2002). What role does the race of professors have on the retention of students attending historically black colleges and universities?Education, 123(1), 186–189.
33.
Information Technology Association of America. (2005). Untapped talent: Diversity, competition and America's high tech future. Retrieved October 25, 2006, from http://www.itaa.org/eweb/upload/execsummdr05.pdf.
34.
Johnson-BaileyJ., & CerveroR. M. (2004). Mentoring in black and white: The intricacies of cross-cultural mentoring. Mentoring and Tutoring, 12(1), 7–21.
35.
KanterR. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation.New York: Basic Books.
36.
KlaweM., & LevesonN. (1995). Women in computing: Where are we now?Communications of the ACM, 38(1), 29–35.
37.
KramK. E. (1983). Phases of the mentor relationship. Academy of Management Journal, 26, 608–625.
38.
KramK. E. (1984). Mentoring at work: Developmental relationships in organizational life.Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.
39.
KramK. E. (1988). Mentoring at work: Developmental relationships in organizational life.Lanham, MD: University Press.
40.
LarwoodL., & BlackmoreJ. (1978). Sex discrimination in manager selection: Testing predictions of the vertical dyad linkage model. Sex Roles, 4, 359–367.
41.
LipsH. M., & TempleL. (1990). Majoring in computer science: Causal models for women and men. Research in Higher Education, 31(1), 99–113.
42.
MacInnisP. (2003). The gender gap. Computer Canada, 29(11), 26.
43.
MargolisJ.FisherA., & MillerF. (1999, Winter). Caring about connections: Gender and computing. IEEE Technology & Society Magazine, 18, 13–20.
44.
McIlroyD.SadlerC., & BoojawonN. (2007). Computer phobia and computer self-efficacy: Their association with undergraduates' use of university computer facilities. Computers in Human Behavior, 23(3), 1285–1299.
45.
MiuraI. T. (1986). Computer self-efficacy: A factor in understanding gender differences in computer course enrollment. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA, April 16–20, 1986.
46.
MonteloneB. A.DyerR. A., & DoloresJ. T. (2003). A mentoring program for female and minority faculty members in the sciences and engineering: Effectiveness and status after 9 years. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 9(3&4), 259–271.
47.
NoeR. A. (1988a). Women and mentoring: A review and research agenda. Academy of Management Review, 13(1), 65–78.
48.
NoeR. A. (1988b). An investigation of the determinants of successful assigned mentoring relationships. Personnel Psychology, 41(3), 457–479.
49.
OganC.RobinsonJ. C.AhujaM., & HerringS. C. (2006). Gender differences among students in computer science and applied information technology. In AsprayW. & McGrath CohoonJ. (Eds.), Women and information technology: Research on the reasons for under-representation (pp. 279–300). Cambridge: MIT Press.
50.
PearlA.PollackM. E.RiskinE.ThomasB.WolfE., & WuA. (1990). Becoming a computer scientist: A report by the ACM Committee on the status of women in computing science. Communications of the ACM, 33(11), 47–57.
51.
PfleegerS. L., & MertzN. (1995). Executive mentoring: What makes it work?Communications of the ACM, 38(1), 63–75.
52.
ReichM. H. (1986). The mentor connection. Personnel, 63(2), 50–62.
53.
RileyS., & WrenchD. (1985). Mentoring among women lawyers. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 15, 374–386.
54.
SantosS., & ReigadasE. T. (2002). Latinos in higher education: An evaluation of a university faculty mentoring program. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 1(1), 40–51.
55.
ScanduraT. A. (1992). Mentorship and career mobility: An empirical investigation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 169–174.
ThomasD. A. (2001). The truth about mentoring minorities: Race matters. Harvard Business Review, 79(4), 98–107.
58.
TillmanL. C. (2001). Mentoring African American faculty in predominantly white institutions. Research in Higher Education, 42(3), 295–325.
59.
TsedalB.AnglinM.SanchezW., & BallouM. (2002). Mentoring and relational mutuality: Proteges' perspectives. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education & Development, 41(1), 87–102.
60.
TurkleS. (1988). Computational reticence: Why women fear the intimate machine. In KramaraeC. (Ed.), Technology and women's voices: Keeping in touch (pp. 41–61). New York: Routledge.
61.
Ülkü-SteinerB.Kurtz-CostesB., & KinlawC. R. (2000). Doctoral student experiences in gender-balanced and male-dominated graduate programs. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(2), 296–307.
62.
WajcmanJ. (1991). Feminism confronts technology.University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
63.
WeaverM. A., & ChelladuraiP. (1999). A mentoring model for management in sport and physical education. Quest, 51, 24–38.
64.
WelchO. M. (1996). An examination of effective mentoring models in the academy. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, April 8–13, 1996.
65.
WhitelyW.DoughertyT. W., & DreherG. F. (1991). Relationship of career mentoring and socioeconomic origin to managers and professionals early career progress. Academy of Management Journal, 34(2), 331–351.
66.
WidnallS. E. (1988). AAAS presidential lecture: Voices from the pipeline. Science, 241, 1740–1745.
