Exploring the Motivation and Experiences of Women in the Computer Science Major at Florida Research University

This study examined the factors contributing to the underrepresentation of women studying undergraduate Computer Science (CS) at Florida Research University (FRU), a preeminent public university. Even as the growing popularity of computing technologies has boosted enrollment numbers in CS majors over the past decade, women's attrition rate remains much higher than that of their male counterparts (FL DOE, 2021). The research literature on women in science and math majors identifies a number of reasons for this gender gap, including the lack of pre-collegiate exposure, stereotype threats from both society and the classroom, and embedded biases in the curriculum itself (Holmberg-Wright & Wright, 2018; Ellis et al., 2016). To date, there has not been an in-depth look into women's experiences enrolled in the CS major at FRU, and this research was intended to fill that void.