Addressing the Recruitment and Retention of Female Students in Computer Science at Third Level

Abstract

In the School of Computing at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), Ireland, we undertook our Computer Science for All (CS4All) initiative, a five year strategy to implement structural reforms at Faculty level, to address recruitment and retention issues of female undergraduate computer science (CS) students. Since 2012, under CS4All we implemented a variety of reforms to improve student retention, set up a new CS program to attract more female students, and delivered changes to promote a sense of community amongst our female students. We have made significant improvements. For example, we have achieved a dramatic improvement in retention rising from 45% to 89% in first year progression rates. Our new hybrid CS International program has more than double the percentage of females first year enrolments in comparison to our other undergraduate programs. As at 2018, we continue to roll out the remaining parts of CS4All within our School.