According to research from Dear Tech People, based on data from 100 tech companies, while women make up 50% of the American population, they only make up about 37% of the tech sector*. Separately, a study by Microsoft reports that girls’ interest in STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and math—peaks in early middle school but begins to drop off shortly after. One of the major factors in this decline is a lack of hands-on opportunities.
*Check out my colleague’s visualization on this research.
The Company
Girls+Data is a non-profit organization that aims to provide middle-school girls with the hands-on learning opportunities they’re missing. This organization provides workshops that give young girls the chance to engage in multiple activities that culminate in a final project, focusing on different topics in data analytics.
The Data and Design
Over the past year, Girls+Data has hosted eight workshops around the country. For each of these, they collected data about the participants, including a survey they completed pre- and post-workshop. Some of these questions were ratings (“How much fun did you have?”), while others were free form (“What was your favorite part of the event?”). While ratings data can be straight forward, the free-form answers required some data cleaning, for which I turned to Alteryx. Once this cleaning was completed, it was time to create the dashboard.
The goal of this dashboard was to create a concise visualization that helps summarize the impact the Girls+Data workshops have. Since this was intended to be printed and used in decks and annual reports, an infographic-type design made the most sense. Take a look below and check out the positive impact this organization has had already.
