Peer Reviewed Journal via three different mandatory reviewing processes, since 2006, and, from September 2020, a fourth mandatory peer-editing has been added.
This study examines the implications of a gendered
website production and preference aesthetic for the
teaching of computer studies. Where the website
production aesthetic is concerned, it finds evidence of
statistically significant differences on 13 of the 23 factors
against which sixty student websites were rated. These
results were suggestive of a website aesthetic continuum
with male and female production aesthetic tendencies at
either end. The preference tests, conducted with 67
subjects, revealed preferences to be in tune with
production aesthetics such that men had a statistically
significant tendency to prefer home pages produced by
men, and women those produced by women. This latter
tendency was higher than the former.
The finding of gendered differences in website
production and preference aesthetics has important
implications for teaching and assessment. Teachers
selecting or assessing websites, whether commercial or
produced by pupils and students, need to be mindful of
the aesthetic employed in those websites. When selecting
websites for educational purposes, a match should be
made between the website and end-user preferences.
Assessment of students’ work should ideally be mindful
of the potential for positive bias on the part of the
assessor in the direction of work displaying their own
favoured aesthetic.
