ROSE Blog: Rikki's Open Source Exchange

Today Selena Decklemann (a.k.a. @selenamarie) shared a link to an article on the Science Notes 09 site. The article, Of Geeks and Girls, describes the results of a study done by Professor Sapna Cheryan. According to the study, "She has found that women rate themselves as less interested in computer science than men in the “geek room”... . But in a room decorated more neutrally with art posters, nature photos, and water bottles, their interest levels were about the same." In short, environment can play a huge role in attracting and keeping women in computer science positions.

The article also includes an interesting sidebar on "pair programming." Researchers found that women and men both benefit from programming in pairs – although pair programming slows down the coding processing, it increases accuracy and programmer retention.

Lisa Grossman's entire article is an excellent read, so go check it out for yourself.