Kenton Machina

Maintaining Positive Attitudes toward Science and Technology in First‐Year Female Undergraduates: Peril and promise

This study investigated attitude changes of 18‐year‐old first‐year college students at a large state‐operated institution in the USA during their initial semester in college. Attitudes of 375 students enrolled in a non‐science first‐year student seminar during the Fall of 2004 were measured, using a new instrument designed to focus on five attitude constructs especially relevant to female engagement with science and technology (S & T). The authors found that students whose seminar included visits with S & T professionals, plus at least four weeks of context‐based S & T content, maintained modestly positive attitudes toward S & T. Students whose seminars included the science content but not the visits from professionals also maintained relatively positive attitudes, except that the females became less accepting of female participation in S & T. Notably, females enrolled in seminars that did not include any of these interventions declined significantly in all five attitudes toward S & T, even though 95% of these students were simultaneously enrolled in required introductory natural science courses. Thus, introducing context‐based science content into the curriculum appears to be helpful in maintaining positive attitudes toward S & T in 18‐year‐old US female college students, while more traditional natural science pedagogy is associated with attitude decline in these students. This result is socially significant because females continue to be under‐represented in several S & T fields at the level of first university degree, in many regions of the world.

Interventions for increasing male and female undergraduate interest in information technology

There is a continuing worldwide need for developing a larger and more diverse workforce in the broad field of information technology (IT). We report on two activities conducted by the project within selected classes of a postsecondary finite mathematics course: 1) a student-written blog about practical applications of computing, and 2) after-class seminar sessions with professionals about the importance of computing in the work world. It was found that the hundreds of students who actively participated in these activities were significantly more likely to enroll in a computing course or declare a computing-related major than were non-participating students, despite the fact that the two groups of students displayed identical attitudes toward computing at the start of the term. The study demonstrates that relevant blogs and sessions with professionals can be effective tools for recruiting students, including women, who otherwise would not have chosen to complete more course work in computing. Blog reading or meeting with computing professionals can generate interest in IT.Study population was drawn from general education mathematics course.Participating students were significantly more likely to enroll in IT courses or majors.Both male and female students were affected positively.Female students were more dramatically affected than males.

Freedom of expression in commerce

Does commercial speech deserve the same freedom from governmental interference as do noncommercial forms of expression? Examination of this question forces a reappraisal of the grounds upon which freedom of expression rests. I urge an analysis of those grounds which founds freedom of speech upon the requirements of individual autonomy over against society. I then apply the autonomy analysis to commercial expression by examining the empirical features which distinguish commercial forms of expression. Some such features - e.g., “triviality” — have been cited by others as justification for limiting the freedom accorded commercial speech, but I reject the power of those features to limit freedom of expression. Instead, I identify three features of commercial expression which are relevant to the task: resiliency (coupled with potential for abuse), action-orientation, and intimate connection with conventional commercial structures. I discuss the implications of these features for legitimizing governmental restriction of freedom in commercial expression, with the general conclusion that such restriction must be more severely limited than is commonly thought.

Online Learning Communities to Recruit and Retain Students in Information Technology Programs

Over the last decade the percentage of women and non-Asian minorities within the US IT workforce has dropped, and the number of undergraduates pursuing computer science degrees has dropped, leading to predictions of a shortage of US citizens who are trained IT professionals. Prevailing labor projections regarding the shortage of information technology (IT) professionals provide impetus for increasing computing-related majors. Unfortunately, many highly talented female and minority students never investigate IT or computer science as an academic option. Current NSF-funded investigation of attitudes toward IT held by US young adults identifies a number of stereotypes regarding IT that are causing difficulty in recruiting interest in IT course work, particularly among under-represented groups such as women. These include the notion that IT professionals are geeky White or Asian males who work long, hard hours in isolation, doing boring things with little chance for creativity or fun. To be successful in marketing IT course work, it is likely that such stereotypes need to be somehow overcome, and that these stand in the way of college IT recruiting programs that depend on antecedent interest in IT. However, our own previous research into undergraduate freshman attitudes toward STEM has suggested that negative perceptions can be countered and positive attitudes toward STEM can be maintained by interventions in the curriculum that humanize STEM professional life and show the social importance of STEM development. Applying this research to the problem of IT recruitment, the suggestion is that it is possible to generate interest in IT even after a student has begun college with no particular antecedent interest in IT.