Female students assess software tutors more positively than male students

In an earlier study reported at FIE 2006, we found that there was no statistically significant difference between female and male students on their assessment of the usability, ability to learn from and the usefulness of our software tutors, except on the only two negatively worded likert-scale statements with which female students disagreed significantly more than male students. In order to find out whether this difference was simply an artifact of the negative wording of the statements or whether female students assess software tutors more positively than male students, we conducted a follow-up study using a feedback form that contained an even number of positively- and negatively-worded likert-scale statements. We found that female students agreed with positively-worded statements and disagreed with negatively-worded statements significantly more than male students. We conclude that female students assess our software tutors more positively than male students and this is not an artifact of the (positive versus negative) wording of the feedback statements.