Gender Gap? A Snapshot of a Bachelor Computer Science Course at Graz University of Technology

Although career chances are good, technology, engineering and especially computer science (CS) related studies still do not attract as many female students as other fields. This paper describes a study in the context of an introductory CS course for first semester university students. In this course essential programming concepts are taught and exercised. The first contact with programming is crucial to keep students in the long run. By conducting a survey before and after the course we aim at finding short-term measures to improve the course on organizational level and answer questions about gender equality, such as "Are female students disadvantaged and thereby negatively affects their grades?" and "Is there a difference between female and male students in their perceived CS education prior to university and if, does this have an impact on their academic performance?". Female and male students’ self ratings regarding their programming skills are investigated concerning gender differences and whether they have an impact on their academic performance. Our results show, that neither previous education nor the students’ performance differ significantly according to gender. Self ratings differ significantly between genders, but for both genders self ratings do not correlate with academic performance.