Neophyte and Ezpert Women Engineers Feedback on the Sufficiency and Quality of Undergraduate ICT Training at the Tunisian University
Tunisia has succeeded in investing in technologybased learning by investing heavily in acquiring the hardware in primary, secondary and tertiary education. A national program has also attempted to enable a large number of limited income families to buy a home computer. This study aims to investigate the conceptions and beliefs of neophyte and expert women engineers on the sufficiency and quality of undergraduate ICT training and suggest possible ways for training students to innovate in technology and not just to use it Data collected from in-depth interviews with 12 expert and neophyte engineers revealed that these engineers were generally confident that their undergraduate training succeeded in introducing them to ICT as related to their field of expertise. They revealed, however, a number of general problems such as a low ratio of hardware per student, unnecessary theoretical cramming of ICt courses, or the use of irrelevant cases of practice. The neophyte engineers judge that what they have learnt about using IT in their field of expertise, they learnt it during projects and specially the final year one. Expert engineers revealed that what they have learned at the university is nothing compared to what they have learnt at work. However, the gender disparity revealed in the data concerns the female engineers conceptions of technology and the role it should play in the wellbeing and advancement of their careers. The women engineers who took part in this study reported uneasiness in what they described as men boasting about technology and the oft-experienced shows with men with toys that they have witnessed at university and especially at work. They complain that men render the use of ICT as a goal on its own and thus render what the women engineers describe as the core of the engineers work redundant. They often feel that their work projects are minimized because the male directors jump on the new technological trick that their male colleagues offer and ignore the creative side. This study ends up with discussing whether there is a need for a paradigm shift in teaching ICT skills to student engineers and whether in doing so we need a special curriculum for female students.
Raoudha Othman
University of Tunis
国际会议
2009 World Congress on ICT for Development(2009世界信息通信与发展大会)
北京
英文
140
2009-09-10（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）