Women's Participation in Computing: Evolving Research Methods

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the evolution of women's participation in computing research through new data on authorship in ACM SIGs from 1970-2000, highlighting growth and disciplinary differences.

Contribution

It introduces an improved mixed methods research approach for assessing women's participation in computing history, building on prior data and extending analysis techniques.

Findings

Significant growth in women's authorship in ACM SIGs from 1970 to 2000

Notable differences in women's participation across different SIGs

Development of a refined mixed methods research approach

Abstract

A 2022 keynote for the ACM History Committee on "Why SIG History Matters: New Data on Gender Bias in ACM's Founding SIGs 1970-2000" presented new data describing women's participation as research-article authors in 13 early ACM Special Interest Groups, finding significant growth in women's participation across 1970-2000 and, additionally, remarkable differences in women's participation between the SIGs. That presentation built on several earlier publications that developed a research method for assessing the number of women computer scientists that [a] are chronologically prior to the availability of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data on women in the IT workforce; and [b] permit focused investigation of varied sub-fields within computing. This present report expands on these earlier articles, and their evolving research method, connecting them to the ACM SIG Heritage presentation. It also outlines some of the choices and considerations made in developing and refining "mixed methods" research (using both quantitative and qualitative approaches) as well as extensions of the research being currently explored.