Notes on section 5.3 of the paper "Why do women pursue a PhD in Computer Science?"
Arguments in favour of enrolling in a PhD
This analysis is based on the following Likert-scale type questions:
Q31. The aims and contents of PhD studies suit me.
Q32. I believe I meet the requirements for getting a PhD position.
Q33. A PhD would improve my future career.
Q34. Pursuing a PhD would be fun.
Q35. Better gender balance in computer science would increase my interest in PhD studies.
Table 6 is extended here with three columns making explicit the Mann-Whitney U tests statistics, the rank of the hypothesis, by p-value, the Holm-Bonferroni corrected significance level, and the Bonferroni corrected significance level.
Extended Table 6
The detailed data analysis, including the Mann-Whitney U tests can be found in the Excel file SurveyDataAnalysis, on the sheet RQ1. MW-UQ12-Q43Q47-Q54.
To help in the interpretation of the data, the following chart summarises the results obtained for these questions. The data for this chart can be found in the Excel file SurveyDataAnalysis, on the sheet RQ1. Q31-Q35Diagram. This chart only presents results for questions where there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups.
The distribution of responses to questions related to participants’ perceptions of supporting factors in favour of PhD studies from those who choose to do a PhD and those who didn’t.
Participants who chose to do a PhD were more inclined to perceive it as something that would fit their needs, improve their future careers, and be fun to do. They also felt more prepared to do so and are more inclined to think that more gender balance would increase their intentions of doing a PhD.
