Gender Differences in Self and Peer Assessment in a Software Engineering Capstone Course

Context: Women are generally underrepresented in software development and probably their behavior is biased by the fact that they are usually a minority within teams. The Engineering School at the Universidad de Chile has put in practice a strong women recruitment program. This brought that, for the first time, women reached 20% of the students enrolled in the fifth year software engineering capstone course. Problem: More women are entering the work force but there is still certain prejudice about women performance in STEM in general, and in software development in particular, since it is perceived as a man's activity. Method: In the context of the fifth year capstone course at the CS Department of the Universidad de Chile we conducted a field study in order to analyze the progression of self and peer assessment of men and women students along one semester. Results: We found that, even though peer assessment is similar for women and men, self assessment tends to be lower for women. Also, peer assessment does not vary much along the semester, neither for men nor for women. Conclusions: Women performance in software development teams is highly regarded by teammates. However, women do not seem to be willing to acknowledge their own performance. More research is needed in order to understands the causes of this behavior.