| Steele and Aronson (1995) proposed stereotype threat as the construct responsible for task underperformance by a stereotyped group. This underperformance occurs in a domain negatively characterized by the stereotype. Females are stereotyped as less capable than males in the computer field. Digital literacy involves the ability to locate and evaluate information online. Study 1 used an Internet Research Measure (IRM), the Computer Anxiety Scale (CAS), and an examination of the attribution of failure to determine if stereotype threat could be elicited on the IRM. No significant differences were present in IRM or CAS scores between stereotype threat females, nonstereotype threat females, and males. Significant differences were found between conditions on their attribution of failure; males were more likely to not acknowledge failure than either stereotype or nonstereotype threat females. In order to explain the inability to evoke stereotype threat, Study 2 investigated perceptions concerning females and digital literacy skills. Study 2 defined a stereotype for digital literacy by analyzing perceptions of performance based on gender for five subsets of digital literacy skill: photovisual literacy, reproduction literacy, information literacy, branching literacy, and socio-emotional literacy. Participants (as one group) reported the following perceptions: females would perform better than males in two of the skills (reproduction and branching), females would perform worse than males on two other skills (photovisual and socio-emotional), and both genders would perform equally on the task representative of information literacy. |
