Motivating Technology Education Among Beginners: Insights from the Women Techsters Open Days

• By Gladys Ehindola and Oluwafemi Awopegba

Executive Summary

The development and impact of science and technology is growing very quickly hence, it is important to motivate beginners to keep exploring tech education so as to equip them with readiness for leveraging the power of technology. Motivating beginners also helps to ensure that they are provided with steps to becoming more acquainted with the technology terrain.

The Women Techsters Open Day is an informative session where young people curious about technology and new entrants in the technology industry can listen to personal stories of women in tech and also benefit from Q & A sessions to aid their journey into tech. We hypothesized that girls and women newly exploring the world of technology would relate and empathize more with the experiences of women of a similar age group and those who are not too far off along the tech career path however, this was not entirely accurate.

Evidence from three Open Day sessions show that both young and elderly mentors can be of equal motivating force. Moreover, beyond the desire to further their education in Tech, there were more newcomers interested in getting a job in tech. Policy implications of these findings are that technology advocacy and enlightenment initiatives should seek to attend to the needs and aspirations of newcomers to technology with respect to all their possible perceived uses and goals of technology.

Background

The Women Techsters Open Day is a program that assists learners in their educational journey in technology enabling them to ask questions, speak to the alumni present, and learn more about the technology ecosystem. One of the benefits of the Open Day is to motivate participants to have an interest in technology education. The lack of motivation constitutes a growing concern among learners and newcomers.

In the process of solving this concern, stimulating adequate motivation is critical. Through the role of motivation, students can decide to take important steps while on the road to study in schools (Dislen, 2013). According to Campbell (2012) motivation has the capacity to function significantly in learners’ engagement and in their ability to explore new terrains.

Technology is necessary for achieving a wide range of purposes in life. The development and impact of science and technology is growing very quickly hence, motivating tech education among beginners can equip them with readiness for leveraging the power of technology. According to Aboobaker et al (2020), it is important for education providers to inspire innovative study behavior among student newcomers in order to help them gain good basic competences. For instance, motivating females who are novices is another way to increase their interest in technology courses.

The emergence of technology in today’s world is increasing the need for digital education, and as such new learners are encouraged to acquaint themselves with readily available knowledge in order to sustain their interest in technology (Chiu, 2021). To begin studying a tech course, it is expected that female students who have had a positive experience while engaging in tech programs, will develop a good attitude, further making them more interested in studying about technology (Boser, 1998). Having this positive learning experience can positively shape learners use of technology, thus suggesting that expectations depend on prior experiences and attitudes.

Motivating tech education has been shown to positively address the costs of educational development, which is a barrier to technology adoption. More so, Fraklin et al, (2001) posit that girls and women newly exploring the world of technology can additionally benefit more from female-led mentorship programs.

Digital programs with integrated mentorship opportunities provide the needed support to promote the decision to venture into tech. An article by Stigmar (2016) also confirms that students who seek motivation for the purpose of improving their critical thinking, learning autonomy, collaborative and communicative skills record greater academic achievement gains.

This positively impacts their well-being, such that they report greater satisfaction and success in their academics (Brady et al., 2020). Attending a virtual Open Day program saves the cost of in-person attendance, thereby offering a student newcomer, a chance to connect and interact with the speakers, and other attendees. This is also effective in helping students’ newcomers to reflect on their learning, leading to better retention rates and academic values (Watts, 2019).

Insights from the Women Techsters Open Days

The Women Techsters Open Day is a monthly virtual program organized by Tech4Dev for women across Africa to learn about leveraging the power of technology. This program is specially designed for novices in technology, who are encountering tech for the first time. It focuses on exposing novices and beginners to acquainted the possible opportunities that existed if women were to take up a career in tech. To achieve this objective, the Open Day typically calls on elderly and highly positioned women in the tech space, thereby drawing from their wealth of experience. The May and June 2022 Open Days were such occasions, whereby all facilitators were industry experts.

In starting a career in tech, a woman can choose to further her education by studying a technology course at the higher education level. Given that youths are heavily influenced by their peers, we hypothesize that girls and women newly exploring the world of technology would relate and empathize more with the experiences of women of a similar age group and those who are not too far off along the tech career path.

The May 2022 Open Day provided such an occasion, whereby 3 out 4 of the facilitators were recent alumni of the Women Techsters Fellowship (a 6-month intermediate program in tech skills). This memo analyses the report from 3 Open Days (conducted in April, May and June) to examine whether having a peer rather than an elderly woman made a significant difference in motivating the decision of the student newcomers to study tech.

The number of women who were novices/beginners and students that registered for the Open Days was 50 (April), 97 (May) and 129 (June). However, examining the number of those who sustained interest in actually attending the event fell (23, April; 53, May; 38, June). This result may imply that there was ultimately greater interest among student newcomers in the alumni-facilitated Open Day, however, this inference only holds true in absolute terms.

Although, the absolute number of newcomers who were students that attended the event was highest in May, the proportion of those who wish to study tech was highest in April (21.7%), compared to other months (18.9% May; 13.2%, June). Therefore, the hypothesis that “having a peer rather than an elderly woman made a significant difference in motivating the decision of the student newcomers to study tech” is rendered inconclusive or rather is insignificant.

Moreover, other findings suggest that there are other overwhelming reasons why student newcomers would wish to be part of the Open Day, regardless of whether the facilitators are peer-to-peer or not. In fact, most of the student newcomers in May were more interested in getting a tech job (43.4%) or simply attended the Open Day because they were tech enthusiasts (34%). This result persists in the case of April (30.4%, tech job; 39.1%, tech enthusiast) and June (42.1%, tech job; 39.5%, tech enthusiast).

Conclusion

Motivating tech education is important to new female students in helping their journey to tech. Results show that the desire to study tech was equally influenced by both young and elderly mentors. Moreover, there were other overwhelming reasons why newcomers would wish to be part of the Open Day, the biggest of which was to get a tech job.

This finding speaks to the overarching goals of development in Africa and among women, which is reducing the poverty and income gaps in the African society in general and between gender. Therefore, education and technology related policies should seek to enlighten female newcomers into the technology ecosystem while reassuring them of the multiple opportunities that abound to help them leverage the power of technology in solving their biggest economic challenges.

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