“I would rather spend time with a person than a machine”: Qualitative Findings from the Girls and ICT Survey

Abstract

This paper reports on qualitative findings of the "Girls and Information Communication Technology" (ICT) survey, investigating the declining trend in high school girls taking advanced level Information Processing Technology (IPT) and Information Technology Systems (ITS) subjects. Girls from 26 Queensland high schools participated in the Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant project, conducted by researchers from James Cook University (JCU) in partnership with Education Queensland (EQ) and Technology One. This paper reports on the major themes that resulted from content analysis of the open question comments provided by 1,452 girls who either did or did not chose IPT/ITS subjects.