 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Moodle Academy webinar, Could Moodle Reduce Gender Inquities? I'm Anna Kressa, Education Advisor at Moodle HQ, and I'm joined by Agnes Peters, Researcher and Assistant Professor at Ote Ecole Bruxelles-Branden in Belgium. Recent research on gender minorities, so that more males than females dropped out during their first year of studying engineering. One possible reason could be the difference in the use of take-up of Moodle. And it is well known that day-to-day studying is more difficult for minorities. If face-to-face element is tougher, might the remote element help females to stay engaged with the curriculum? In order to answer this question, the use rate of Moodle by male and female engineering students at various level was observed before and during the exam period. Today, Agnes Peters will present the statistical results and suggest some ways Moodle could help gender minorities at university level. Hello, thank you Anna for this kind introduction. And good morning, good afternoon, good evening, I don't know, depending on where you are. But for me, I'm in Belgium, in Brussels, so for me it's good morning. So let's start with my presentation. I will of course start with a general introduction and a presentation of the general context of my research and then focus on my research context. Then I will show you the main results I obtained with my colleagues to present rules and conclusions and try to answer this question, could Moodle reduce gender inequities or try to do it? So remember just one week ago, it was the International Women's Day and international it's really because whatever you are, you are concerned by this topic. There is a lot of difference all over the world about women's rights and men's rights. And UNESCO decided to use as one of the main themes of this year the topics about education and digitalization and you know it's really important and Moodle is really at the core of these two intersections. And when you think about gender inequities in an educational framework, we mainly think about countries where girls are not allowed to go to school or have a very limited restricted access to education. Hopefully in my country and just like in a lot of other countries, it is not the case. Girls and boys is the same right to go to school and even the same duty to go to school. But nevertheless, we are still facing a kind of gender inequities and inequities. But maybe in a more insidious way because it is not due to some laws or other things, but it's more linked to our culture and indeed from the birth, children go with the idea that there is some toys for boys or girls, some clothes for boys and other for girls, some colors, some hobbies, some sports and even some words for girls and other for boys. And it's naturally leads later when children become young adults have to choose a work and some studies. It leads to a kind of segregation and we observe some labs or classrooms in your own universities with a lot of men and also one with a lot of women. So we are still facing gender inequalities even in our countries. So that's why my university decided a little bit than one year ago to start a research project a large research project about gender issue with the idea to create a training module for students in order to make them aware to this gender issue during the process but also later on during the work life. And when we start this project we start with the idea to establish a kind of gender picture of your university and to obtain some actual and factual data and we of course obtain some expected results like for example there is a lot of boys in a classroom in IT science and engineering science and so on and a lot of girls in studies like human and social science. But we also obtain some unexpected and questioning results just like this one for example we have here the success rates of boys and girls depending on the percentage of boys in the faculty and we observe that the success rate of girls higher from about 15% than the success rates of boys except in the two main extreme part of these pictures and on the left part you can see faculties where the number of boys is less than 15% and we observe a decrease of the success rate of boys and on the right part of these pictures we have faculties where the number of girls is lower than 15% and we observe a decrease of the success rate of girls so we try to understand what is happening in these faculties and we first focus on the right part of the pictures and we focus on engineering studies and one of your questions was about Moodle because we use Moodle in order to keep in touch with the students and especially during the pandemic and so maybe the use of girls and boys is not the same the use of Moodle is not the same for boys and for girls so we try to observe what is happening with Moodle and we focus about engineering students and we look at different kind of situations and different kind of groups we work with students in the first year of the bachelor's degrees because engineering studies is made of three years of bachelor's degrees and then two years of master's degrees so we had a look on the first year of the bachelor's degrees and the look on the first year of the master's degrees for different sections for students from chemistry, electronics and nuclear physics at the beginning all the students have the same lectures and then they have to choose a specialization and we also look on the students in the second year of the master's degree in nuclear physics I will explain later why we choose these sections then we also look on different kind of activities and we look what was happening for global use of Moodle so the entire platform and also for only one specific course and we look at what was happening in the e-learning module we also look at different kind of periods the lectures period it's normal normal weeks where students go to school to have lecture and so on but we also look at what is happening during the exam period also during the pre-exam period it's a kind of blank week between the lectures period and the exam period there is no more lectures and students just have time to prepare the exam but of course we cannot think about the way students use Moodle without thinking about the way lecturers use Moodle so how does our lecturers use Moodle mainly in two ways to post some messages for the students so to communicate with them but in a kind of only one way communication so lecturers send messages about a change in the classroom for tomorrow or some rules for the exam of work and so on and they also use Moodle in order to share some documents presentation so for example during a lecture in the classroom the lecturers show some slides or some videos and later on students will be able to find them on Moodle some lecturers also use Moodle in order to perform some quizzes for example but only for non-mandatory quizzes just to help students during the learning we do not perform any assessments with Moodle we did it of course during the pandemic and the lockdown but we do not do it anymore and there is also some e-learning modules but only for the learning not for the assessment and it's Moodle is also used to have some feedback from the students of to perform some administrative tasks or find documents but only for lecturers students are not concerned by this part so let's have a look on our students and we will start with the first year of the bachelor degrees for a general use of Moodle for the entire platform during the exam and pre-exam period of last academic year it's mean about May and June 2022 and we observe this kind of pictures while the orange curve is about girls and the other one is about boys and it is the number of requests from boys and girls and so there is not really big differences between these two curves with approximately the same pattern but nevertheless the values are higher for request from girls and the average is also higher of course for girls and for boys if we look what was happening for students from the first year of the bachelor degrees in one specific course during a more longer period it's about October 2022 to January 2023 and we have this kind of things one more time it's approximately the same for boys and girls with some difference a little bit higher value from girls at some moment and if we focus on three specific periods here during the lectures period pre-exam period and exam period we observe there is some differences during the lectures period the average number of requests from girls is higher than from boys but during the pre-exam and exam periods it is the opposite so it means that girls will work in a more regular or anticipate way and boys will many use Moodle during the last weeks before the exams so it's here a difference in the use of Moodle but here of course these pictures and the one of the previous slides not concerning the same students okay it's also students from the first year of the bachelor degrees but not the same students because we are not in the same academic year there was a letter the percentage of girls is about 20-25% and if you want to see if there is an influence of this percentage on the use of Moodle by boys and girls we have to move to the first year of the master degree and we choose a two section with the highest values numbers of girls and the lowest value of girls. So in health mechanics we have only 6% of girls and in chemistry we have about 75% of girls so we have a clearly appearing here but so this is our situation and we look on the use and the number of requests from boys and girls of these sections for a global and general use platform during the pre-exam and exam period of last academic year and we obtain these results with these results clearly we observe some differences between boys and girls in health mechanics we have a highest peak from girls and in chemistry the highest peak is from boys nevertheless the average of girls is higher in both cases but of course here students from mechanics and from chemistry do not have the same lectures so it could be it could have an influence on the way students use and have requests on noodles so we had a look on another situation it's about only one course and this course is a course of mathematics it has been selected because it is given in the same way to students from nuclear physics and students in chemistry so it's exactly the same lectures with the same lecturers in the same classrooms at the same time and with the same course on Moodle so everything is the same but in nuclear physics we have a number of girls and in chemistry we have a number of girls of 50% and we observe these pictures so we see for the first time that the average number of requests from boys is higher than the average number of requests from girls in chemistry in nuclear physics it's more or less the same kind of value but in chemistry we have a higher value for our boys and we also observe different use of Moodle by girls in chemistry they did not really use Moodle except some days and so it's really different from what we could observe in nuclear physics for example another way to look at these pictures is also to compare what is happening for boys depending on the sections and from girls depending on the sections and so it is the same value but just another way to compare them and here we observe that for boys we have a higher use of Moodle from boys in chemistry where only 50% and for girls we have a higher use of Moodle by girls from nuclear physics so we can really see a difference between these two kind of situations and then we look at what was happening for e-learning module and this e-learning module is lectures in the second year of the master degree for students in nuclear physics where the percentage of girls is 23% and we look at what was happening during a period from October 2002 to January 2023 and we have these pictures we can see that the average number of requests is really close from boys and from girls but with different patterns and different timing and if we look at the average value depending on the period we observe that the use of girls one more time is higher for during the lectures period and the use of Moodle by boys is higher really higher during the exam period so one more time you observe that boys and girls do not work and do not use Moodle, do not work in the same way and do not really use Moodle at the same moment so when we look at this picture we can say of course if you have more girls if you have more requests from girls and if you have more boys you will have more requests from boys but it is not really proportional for some of our result yes it is we can see here that for the first year of the bachelor degrees we are not so far from the line also for students in the first year of the master degree in nuclear physics but it is completely different for students in the first year of master degree in chemistry section whereas the section and the classroom where the number, the percentage of girls is very different from other classrooms so we can see here an influence of the gender as a percentage of girls and both and so in a more or less gendered section we have some use of Moodle gets very different from boys and from girls and we also observe another thing in study it is the time students use Moodle and for the birthiest day of the day with the higher number of requests for each student we look when they connect it and request it to Moodle and we observe that girls really use Moodle mainly during night time what we call night time and boys more use Moodle during daytime. Daytime was defined as time from 8 on the morning to 6 in the afternoon because it's a normal classroom hours so here we have really a difference also in the time the Moodle is used by boys and by girls in at least the first year of master degree so of course we had some kind of limits in this research study because we have a limited number of students so nevertheless we observe what was happening during different kind of situation for different students group with different levels from the first year of the bachelor degrees to the second year of the master degrees and with different kind of percentage and ratio of male and female we also look on different kinds of activities and different periods so we observe also them from different point of view and we obtain some results with the students and the way they use Moodle nevertheless we have a few students and consequently very few girls in our samples because the percentage of girls is low so the number of girls is of course lower than the number of students and we observe also what is happening during a short period just a few months so in a statistical point of view it's it's a little bit weak and it's not sufficient to have really certitudes and to be sure of what is what was showing but nevertheless we observe some trends and some trends that could be questioning and it could show some things about the use of Moodle so if we could improve or continue this research of course we should increase the size of the sample looking what is happening for more students and during longer period in order to improve the quality of the statistics it should also be interesting to have a qualitative approach to this quantitative approach in order to try to understand why we have this kind of behaviour from students why those boys mainly use Moodle during exam and pre-exam period is it just because they work and learn at this moment or maybe they work also during the lectures period but without having a request to Moodle it should be interesting to discuss with the students in order to have this kind of data and another point is it the same kind of thing in other faculties and for example in faculties where the percentage of boys is very low will we observe the same kind of trends or will we observe the opposite so nevertheless with these trends appearing here we would try to answer this question could Moodle reduce gender inequities and how could Moodle do that and first we can we observed that the use of Moodle is higher by the gender minority and we can think that with some results from social and human science because we know that the daily life is more difficult for minorities and gender minorities even if it is possible it's more difficult for example if a girls want to football or what we call football in Belgium and in Europe it's like soccer in United States but if a girls want to play football ok it's possible and there is some clubs for girls but not so many as for boys so it will be more difficult for girls to find a club maybe in the city close to the home and it will be more difficult to have championships because the number of teams are lower so it's possible but it's more difficult and the opposite if boys like to dance ok it's possible but it will be more difficult for this boy to say that school and discuss about that with friends but for girls it's really easy so the daily life is more difficult for minorities maybe sometimes a different way from boys and for girls but it's more difficult and another thing we have from Human and Social Sciences is that minorities are self-considered and do not dare to ask questions or to interact indeed girls grow with the idea that technical things and scientific science and so on for boys so even if they like it and decide to start engineering studies they have somewhere the idea that it's not really their place it's more the place of boys so it's more difficult for these students female students to ask a question and to show in the classroom to other students and to the lecturers that they don't understand for boys it will be more easy of course it will be difficult for some boys but it's not exactly the same thing so here Moodle could help these students because when we are at home and we interact with Moodle you are in a kind of kindness environment you are just alone at home and nobody knows what you do you could look at a video several times to repeat an explanation from the lecturer and so on you could also interact and ask questions with the lecturer without to show it to all the other students so Moodle also allows a personalized work and a lonely work which is easier because we do not have the pressure from the rest of the group another thing we observe in these results is that girls and boys do not choose Moodle at the same time so we observe that girls mainly use Moodle in the evening or at night and maybe could be linked to the kind of double workday syndrome this syndrome is the fact that for working women they have normal working day at work but also another kind of working day at home during the evening and the morning and maybe it is the same for girls it is maybe an explanation of why they use mainly Moodle during the evening or the night and we also observe that girls mainly use Moodle all along the academic year and a different way to work while boys prefer to use Moodle during the pre-exam and exam periods and here also Moodle could help the situation because Moodle allows a different learning so it is possible to work with Moodle and to see some videos or read some documents posted on Moodle at any time so even if the actual lecture is during the day and the lecturer post a document during the day it is possible to have a look on it during the night or the evening and with different use of Moodle and different periods of use of Moodle from boys and from girls it is also helping because when the lecturer will post a document the girls could work with this document a few days later and boys maybe a few weeks or months later and here it is maybe a message for a lecturer who is listening to me the way you will use Moodle will have an influence on the way the students will be able to work with your teacher so if you wait for the end of the lecture period to put a lot of things on Moodle it will be more difficult for girls than for boys so please think about the way you will use Moodle and the timing of the interaction regarding this difference between boys and girls about the timing of a day and the timing of lecture period so thank you for your attention and I am sure we will have some questions Thank you very much that was really interesting, well I do have a question and I am wondering you talk about girls and boys but what is exactly the age of those people we talk for no more 18 years 25 years students so we talk about older students no mainly from 18 to 25 years sometimes we have an adult in the classroom but it's really an exception that's interesting it's really it's really interesting when you take the magnifier you examine cases in such detail and I am wondering have you decided to change to adapt things with your lecturers to how they do things to introduce more activities more options it's really recent results because the last one in February 2023 so just a few weeks ago but starting to think about that under the timing because some of my colleagues waits for the hands of the lecturers for example to post documents so it has an influence it's not gender neutral in fact and as we see that's some this kind of differences it's important to anticipate it to think about I will discuss about these documents for example I will post as soon as possible so it will be a good way to work it will be easier for girls and it will not it will not be more difficult for boys for boys it will be the same but for girls it will be better so it's a way to maybe reduce a very little bit but to maybe reduce the gender inequities because we will not do things that are not favorable for girls but here we are here talking only about results in engineering courses but maybe it will be very different in maybe teaching courses because in these courses we have a lot of girls and especially for courses about teaching with very young children but in this case we also have other parameters which is with students in IT technologies or engineering the use of computers is more than for students in teaching for young children for example so the use of it will also be different of course indeed well to be honest I would be really interested to see more results on your research I mean keeping this research as a long term research and see if we can have a definite answer in the question if Moodle can really help reduce the inequities so we have some questions from Paling he says how were gender minorities defined for this study is this from a traditional face-to-face university or hybrid no here we are in face-to-face it's really important to have the idea of this percentage of girls and boys because it has really an impact during all the day and all the weeks in the ways the girls will be able to even to interact with other students and during teamwork also it's sometimes more difficult for girls to give the idea of to be listened by boys than for other boys because one more time gender education will influence it and we also discuss with students about teamwork and when you have them if there's some differences between boys and girls in the competencies for example everybody say no no it's the same no problem but when we discuss with the students and try to understand really what was the interaction and how does the work will organize and so on we can see that there is some differences so it's not on the voluntary way to introduce some differences but it's yes we don't want to do that but they do that so it's interesting to see that and we have another question from B says how many students girls boys were in the study and on how many months, years sorry for miss that start so the number of girls it depends on the course of the course and of the level and the section because during the first year of the bachelor degree it's immediately maybe 20 girls and yes we are about 20-25% depending on the years and after doing for the first year of the master degree for example it depends on the sections but it is only maybe 10 girls or less than 10 girls in chemistry so it's a few numbers of girls that's why it's not possible to really have some certitudes but nevertheless we see a some trends and she also did you look at other studies bigger data and long time for a long time if you review other studies and compare them with bigger data no I don't see any of those today like that the use of the platform because the question was many arising from the pandemic where we were not allowed to go to school so of course we mainly use this kind of tools like Moodle in order to stay in touch with the students and to continue lessons but during this period it was also a difference because it has not been forecasted of course and so the computer for example was not so easy to have at home no I think most students start to have a computer at home and some of them but it was not the same for everybody and I know one of students during this period had to write a report with a smartphone so it was so difficult for her so that was an achievement we have a question from Mel how were the students directed to the Moodle based resources during the academic period for example was it linked to Moodle completion tracking and promoted the other timeline or a single list within a weekend topic just like that I have the data but I'm not sure I could answer the question how were the students directed to the Moodle based resources during the academic period so how how it depends on the lecturers some lecturers really have a really high use of Moodle and give a lot of documents and external links and so on in order to complete the lectures and for other lecturers it's only just if you want my slides go to Moodle it really depends on the lecturers for some lecturers there is no no need to go to Moodle because you can just listen what is happening in the classroom and it is sufficient but for other lecturers there is a lot of complementary data given to Moodle what is my understanding from Mel's question and correct me if I'm wrong is that if the way that the courses were developed affected the use of the courses if there were more activities more resources if there were completion tracking so they can work alone and help them during self-study and stuff so if there are iniquities if there are different course setups because you talk about 3-4 courses different if the course setup is completely different and if that has an effect to how much the users will be using it the online course yes of course if there is a lot of activities and Moodle students will more go to Moodle I'm not sure it will affect the percentage of use from girls and boys total number will be different but the ratio I think will not really be different and that's what we observe with different results we look at the entire platform with highly developed course and others and we also focus on one specific course so it's the same for everybody and also with learning so the learning is only with Moodle and the teacher during lectures in the classroom to discuss with the students and to answer some questions but the learning is really only based on Moodle activities and in all these cases we have the same kind of trends with higher values from girls and from boys and a difference in the timing of the use intensive use of Moodle okay thank you so much Judith also commented on Moodle's question about the design classroom the educational resources that are used but as you said the point that you were examining was not the course and the activities but was the ratio between boys and girls so with different instructional design and different course development you might have more participants more engagement into the course probably but still the ratio between boys and girls would probably remain the same so yeah well I think we don't have any other questions so I think we are ready to wrap up here thank you so much Agnes and just before we leave the session and we close it I would like you to invite you if you have enjoyed the session to consider getting involved further and help us grow by contributing to the development of Moodle Academy you can do this by visiting our getting involved course which you will find on the front page of Moodle Academy site and you can suggest ideas for new webinars and courses and you can vote on ideas that have been already suggested by others we are always looking for community members to help present webinars like Agnes and co-create courses with us so we would love your help making Moodle Academy more inclusive and if you are able to do please jump 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