[quoting Tripp, 17 May 99.a] Some people (mostly girls and women, but not only women and girls) don't like to interact with machines all day. The shortage of women majoring in computer science, despite recruiting efforts, is one symptom of this preference. I personally think this difference is mostly due to DNA, not "society," which is why I call it a permanent reason.
Rarely do I comment about issues on this listserv, but I just can't pass this by without my $.02 worth.
There have been studies published that show that women and girls are discouraged from studying math, science, engineering, etc. Even female teachers favor boys and encourage them into these fields. It is no surprise to me that "recruiting efforts" fail to bring women on board. If society is saying don't study a certain subject K-12 then why would college women all of a sudden turn to that field?
I taught math for 16 years, mainly at the high school level. Over the years, I saw many students, both boys and girls, who hated math. The major reason seemed to be from having a bad experience in mathematics class at the lower level. There are too many elementary teachers teaching math who hate math but are forced to teach the subject.
In my opinion, genetics doesn't have much to do with who prefers CBI, but your personal learning style/personality type is the driver. I suppose you could argue that your learning style is a result of DNA, but I haven't seen any literature that shows one gender favoring one learning style over another.
When I worked as a statistician in industry, I saw an equal number of women and men who could use an analytical approach to problem-solving and who were equally comfortable with computer usage. It would be silly of me to use that one experience as my one sample, but if I did, then I'd say that there are no differences between men and women with respect to computer usage preferences. But how silly to draw a conclusion from one sample of people!!!
After this fall, I'll have some data taken from UTK calculus classes with respect to which learning style prefers web-based materials. It will be interesting to see what information comes from this study.