Women’s Participation in Student Software Development Teams: A Cross-Sectional Study on Role Distribution
The underrepresentation of women in the software engineering field remains a challenge in both academia and industry. While enrollment numbers remain low, there is also limited research on how responsibilities and roles are distributed within student software development teams, particularly through a gendered lens. This study aims to address this gap by investigating the relationship between team gender composition, female leadership, and the distribution of technical roles among women in SE teams. We analyze data from 628 students—183 of whom were women—across 85 software development teams over seven years. Through predictive analysis, we test three hypotheses: (1) whether women in teams with fewer female members are less likely to assume highly specialized technical roles, (2) whether the presence of a woman in a leadership position increases the likelihood of other women taking on highly technical roles, and (3) whether the distribution of roles among women varies across different student cohorts. Our findings provide partial support for the first and third hypotheses. Women are generally less likely than men to occupy highly specialized technical roles; however, this likelihood is not significantly influenced by the gender ratio within teams. Similarly, while role diversification among women has increased over time—particularly in positions such as Scrum Master and Report Manager—this trend appears to be driven more by declining male participation in certain roles than by increased female engagement. Contrary to our second hypothesis, having a woman as team leader does not significantly impact the likelihood of women assuming highly technical roles. The insights from this study contribute to a deeper understanding of gender dynamics in SE education and highlight the importance of fostering inclusive environments that support diverse role exploration and long-term engagement for women in software engineering.
Wed 15 AprDisplayed time zone: Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil change
14:00 - 15:30 | Human and Social Aspects 3Journal-first Papers at Oceania IV Chair(s): Igor Steinmacher RESHAPE LAB, Northern Arizona University, USA | ||
14:00 15mTalk | Exploring Empathy in Software Engineering: Insights from a Grey Literature Analysis of Practitioners' Perspectives Journal-first Papers Lidiany Cerqueira BRAVAS in Tech, João Pedro Silva Bastos UEFS, Danilo Neves IFS, Glauco Carneiro UFS, Rodrigo Spinola Virginia Commonwealth University, Sávio Freire Federal Institute of Ceará, José Amancio UEFS, Manoel Mendonça Federal University of Bahia | ||
14:15 15mTalk | A comparative study on reward models for user interface adaptation with reinforcement learning Journal-first Papers Daniel Gaspar Figueiredo Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain, Marta Fernández-Diego Universitat Politècnica de València, Silvia Abrahão Universitat Politècnica de València, Emilio Insfran Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain | ||
14:30 15mTalk | Self-monitoring of Developers' Emotions: the Case of Agile Retrospective Meetings Journal-first Papers Daniela Grassi University of Bari, Filippo Lanubile University of Bari, Nicole Novielli University of Bari, Luigi Quaranta University of Bari, Italy, Alexander Serebrenik Eindhoven University of Technology Link to publication DOI | ||
14:45 15mTalk | What Makes a Great Software Quality Assurance Engineer? Journal-first Papers Roselane Silva Farias Institute of Computing (IC), Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Salvador, Brazil, Iftekhar Ahmed University of California at Irvine, Eduardo Almeida Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) | ||
15:00 15mTalk | Women’s Participation in Student Software Development Teams: A Cross-Sectional Study on Role Distribution Journal-first Papers Claudia Maria Cutrupi Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Letizia Jaccheri Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Sofia Papavlasopoulou Norwegian University of Science and Technology Link to publication DOI | ||
15:15 15mTalk | Negativity in Self-Admitted Technical Debt: How Sentiment Influences Prioritization Journal-first Papers Nathan Cassee University of Victoria, Neil Ernst University of Victoria, Nicole Novielli University of Bari, Alexander Serebrenik Eindhoven University of Technology Link to publication DOI | ||