Conference paper presented at EDUCON 2020 García-Holgado, A., Deco, C., Bedregal-Alpaca, N., Bender, C., & Villalba-Condori, K. O. (2020). Perception of the gender gap in computer engineering studies: a comparative study in Peru and Argentina. In 2020 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), (27-30 April 2020, Porto, Portugal). IEEE

1. Perception of the gender gap in computer engineering
studies: a comparative study in Peru and Argentina
Alicia García-Holgado
GRIAL Research Group
University of Salamanca, Spain
aliciagh@usal.es @aliciagh_
Claudia Deco, Norka Bredegal-Alpaca, Cristina Bender, Klinge Orlando Villalba-Condori

2. Index
1. Situation
2. Objective
3. Participants
4. Instruments
5. Data collection
6. Results
7. Discussion
8. Conclusions
9. Acknowledgements
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3. Gender equality and the empowerment of women are global
challenges confronting international organizations such as UNESCO or
United Nations
The fifth SDG of UN is focused on providing
women and girls equal access to education,
healthcare, decent work, and representation
in political and economic decision-making
processes
1. Situation (I)
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4. 1. Situation (II)
• The situation varies from country
to country, and there are
differences among the different
sectors of society
• In the engineering sector, the
participation of women remains
low, and there is a lack of
inclusive environments, where
engineering norms tend to
marginalize women and people
of colour
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5. 1. Situation (III)
• Regarding Latin America, there is a lack of analytical and systematic
studies capable of obtaining quality data that allows the generation
of comparable statistics and indicators which show the actual
situation of women, as well as their progress
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• According to the UNESCO report,
women make up over 30% of the
graduate population in Argentina,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama
and Uruguay

6. 1. Situation (IV)
• Most of them are focused on increasing the number of girls that
choose STEM studies or empowering women during their
professional career, but there are few studies that analyse the
perception of the engineering students about the gender gap
<- ? ->
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7. 2. Objective
This work describes a case study conducted in Peru and Argentina to
analyse the perception of the computer engineering students using
GENCE 2.0
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8. 3. Participants
• The National University of Rosario (UNR) is a public university based
in Rosario (Argentina)
• Students from Computer Science degree
• The National University of San Agustin of Arequipa is also a public
university based in Arequipa (Peru)
• Students from Systems Engineering and Computer Science
degrees
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9. 4. Instrument
• GENCE 2.0 (GENder perspective in Computer Engineering
questionnaire) aims to identify the perception of computer
engineering students about issues related to gender and diversity
• It is composed of 20 items organized in three dimensions
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social
perception
professional
competence
academic
perception

10. 5. Data collection
• The questionnaire was applied in both institutions in October 2019
using LimeSurvey
• The students voluntarily participated in this study and decided
whether to complete the questionnaire. Anonymity was
guaranteed.
• Cronbach's α coefficient using the data gathered from both
institutions is 0.834, so the internal consistency of the instrument is
over the recommended value of 0.7
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11. 6. Results and discussion (I)
• The questionnaire was answered by 75 students
• 34 students from UNR (20.59% women, 76.47% men and 2.94% not
answer)
• 41 students from UNSA (39.02% women and 60.98% men)
• Regarding age, in Peru the sample is most homogeneous, 48.78% are
less than 20 years old, 46.34% are between 21 and 25, and 4.88% are
between 26 and 30
• In Argentina 29.41% are less than 20 years old, 52.94% are between 21
and 25 years, 11.76% are between 26 and 30, and 5.88% are between
31 and 35
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12. 6. Results and discussion (II)
Dimension of social perception
• There are significant differences between Argentine women and the other groups
• Highlight the difference in the item Q29 (inverted item), Argentine men and the
Peruvian students agree with the gender gap is a fad
• Peruvian women do not identify the need to work on gender equality
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13. 6. Results and discussion (III)
Dimension of professional competence
• The perception of Argentine men is very similar to that of Peruvian women
• Peruvian women almost totally disagree with “women have more problems
than men in programming”
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14. 6. Results and discussion (IV)
Dimension of academic perception
• There are significant differences between women and men in Argentina
• On the contrary, the academic perception in Peru is similar for men and
women
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15. 8. Conclusions (I)
• According to The Global Gender Gap Report, Argentina remains as
one of most gender-equal country among the Latin America and
the Caribbean region’s large economies. On the other hand, Peru
retains one of the wider Educational Attainment gender gaps in the
region
• Despite the data collected by the World Economic Forum, the
results show that women students from Peru are not aware of the
gender gap in computer engineering studies
• All students, except women from Argentine, believe that there are
no differences between women and men in the academic context
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16. 8. Conclusion (II)
• The results also show that there is not too much difference
between Peruvian and Argentine men; whereas there are
significant differences between women
• Due to the small sample size, caution must be applied, as the
findings might not be transferable to all computer engineering
students in Peru and Argentina
• Further work needs to be done to analyse the perception of non-
binary students
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17. Acknoweledgments
This work has been possible with the support of the
Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union in its
Key Action 2 “Capacity-building in Higher Education”.
Project W-STEM “Building the future of Latin America:
engaging women into STEM” (Reference number
598923-EPP-1-2018-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP). The
content of this publication does not reflect the official
opinion of the European Union. Responsibility for the
information and views expressed in the publication lies
entirely with the authors
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18. Perception of the gender gap in computer engineering
studies: a comparative study in Peru and Argentina
Alicia García-Holgado
GRIAL Research Group
University of Salamanca, Spain
aliciagh@usal.es @aliciagh_
Claudia Deco, Norka Bredegal-Alpaca, Cristina Bender, Klinge Orlando Villalba-Condori