Gender Differences in Attributions and Behavior in a Technology Classroom

Abstract

The attributions that students make to explain their successes and failures have been implicated as being important in affecting their future expectations, outcomes, and decisions and could be part of the reason for the under-representation of women in the fi elds of computer science and engineering. This study examines the perception of accomplishment, attributions and behavior of fourth- through sixth-grade girls and boys in a technology course where students learned to build simple Lego® robots and program them using RoboLabTM software. There were no signifi cant differences in the girls' and boys' ssessments of their daily accomplishment or in their attributions for their successes or failures, but the girls' behavior during the course was signifi cantly different from that of the boys in that they asked more questions of teachers and made fewer self-assured statements. Teachers need to be aware of these gender differences and take them into consideration in their instruction.