The impact of gender and pedagogical factors on female pass rates

An assessment of student achievement according to gender in core units of study of a Faculty of Information and Communication Technology program tested four hypotheses. The first of these related to the role-model effect of female academics; the second related to the advantages of formal education qualifications of academics; the third to the application of contextualized curricula, and the fourth to the use of a variety of assessment modes. Correlation and regression analysis on the data set indicated that the presence of two of these factors can significantly improve the pass rate of female students while having a benign effect on the pass rate of male students. It is suggested that information systems faculties pay close attention to gender diversity of their teaching faculty, particularly if their female student cohort is less than one in five in a unit of study. It also gives substance to the need or preference for university lecturers having education qualifications. This study needs to be replicated in other information systems faculties and schools to verify this finding.