Timing scaffolding during Web design instruction to positively affect women's expectations for success and task values

The ratio of women participating in information technology at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels has consistently decreased over the past 20 years. This is concerning because it represents a diminishing pipeline of potential women who can bridge the digital divide in the information technology workforce. This dissertation examined how introducing scaffolded software at different times during instruction would affect the likelihood that female students would make future educational and career choices that include information technology. To assess the affect of instruction on students' future choices, the attitudinal measures of expectations for success and task value were monitored during ten weeks of web design instruction.; A crossover research design was used to compare how introducing scaffolding at different points in instruction would affect students' attitudes. Participants in this study, upper-division undergraduate women with limited technical experience, were enrolled in two sections of the same course. In one section, students were introduced to scaffolded software in the beginning of instruction and to unscaffolded software in the middle of instruction. In the second section, students were introduced to the unscaffolded software in the beginning of instruction and to the scaffolded software in the middle of instruction. To compare affects of each approach, students' attititudes were measured through interviews and surveys at three points during instruction: before instruction, in the middle of instruction, and at the end of instruction. Weekly journals and field notes were also collected.; In this study, students who were introduced to the scaffolded software in the middle of instruction reported larger increases in their expectations for success and task values of web design. This group also reported greater confidence creating web pages working alone. These findings suggest that introducing scaffolded software in the middle of instruction may be more effective at increasing the likelihood that students will make future choices that include computer work. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed in this dissertation, including the development of mental templates based on access to scaffolds; students perception of software as distributed intelligence; and loss of authenticity because of too much assistance from the scaffolded software.