EAGER: Creative Activity and Development of IT Skills

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

This exploratory research is a "latitudinal," multi-world study that compares the creative practices of women and their influence in information technology skills acquisition across three different virtual worlds: Second Life, There.com, and OpenSim. The aim of this experimental, potentially transformative research is to better understand the role of creative practice in development of IT skills among women, the motivations and process whereby women develop these skills, and the extent to which they are being parlayed into IT careers. The study will use qualitative methods, including participant observation and interviews, as well as analysis of player-created digital artifacts, to examine the relationship between creative practice and technical skills acquisition among women in virtual worlds. This exploratory research innovates in three ways: First, it is a latitudinal that makes a significant contribution to the body of research on online cultures in virtual worlds by providing a comparative analysis of cultural practices across multiple "metaverse" type worlds. Second, it provides new potentially transformative knowledge about the practices of women in online worlds and their relationship to IT skills acquisition, an understudied area as compared to K-12 girls and STEM skills. Third, it will help us determine the extent to which skills learned in virtual worlds are impacting other aspects of women's lives, such as their general competency and self-efficacy with IT, or their real-world career choices. Because the research seeks to understand the specific motivations of women in virtual worlds to learn IT skills through creative practices, it will provide useful guidelines for expanding female participation in computational fields. It may also form the foundation for a workforce development strategy among post college-age women who are developing IT skills through informal and peer-learning communities that could be parlayed into real-world careers, a phenomenon that is already occurring emergently within the target group.