Despite ongoing progress towards gender equality in education, women remain significantly underrepresented in computer science—a field still shaped by stereotypical expectations in our society. This gap is evident in both traditional classroom settings and online learning platforms such as MOOCs, where women face psychological barriers that hinder their learning success. As MOOCs increase accessibility and democratize education, it’s particularly important to address the barriers women face in these platforms. By analyzing 338,459 negative reviews from 8,067 IT and software courses offered by the MOOC provider Udemy, we explored the differences in how men and women experience these online learning environments. Our analysis was complemented by ten expert interviews, which helped us develop key propositions to explain these gender-based differences and derive guidelines to overcome them. Our results reveal that men and women criticize similar topics in IT courses, demonstrating that they do not belong to different user groups. However, differences between male and female reviews emerge within each topic. These differences are reflected in different communication styles, demands and areas of emphasis, shaped by gender-specific backgrounds, socialization processes and stereotypes. To overcome these differences, we propose seven guidelines drawing form Stereotype Threat Theory for designing gender-inclusive online courses that focus on inclusive communication and representation, creating supportive learning environments, and implementing high-quality, bias-aware educational practices. Aiming to foster greater participation and success for women in computer science.

尽管在教育领域的性别平等方面取得了持续进展，但女性在计算机科学领域的代表性仍然明显不足，而计算机科学领域仍然受到我们社会的刻板期望的影响。这种差距在传统的课堂环境和 MOOC 等在线学习平台中都很明显，女性在这些平台上面临着阻碍她们学习成功的心理障碍。随着 MOOC 提高了可访问性并使教育民主化，解决女性在这些平台中面临的障碍尤为重要。通过分析 MOOC 提供商 Udemy 提供的 338,459 门 IT 和软件课程的 8,067 条负面评论，我们探讨了男性和女性体验这些在线学习环境的差异。我们的分析得到了 10 次专家访谈的补充，这有助于我们制定关键命题来解释这些基于性别的差异并得出克服这些差异的指南。我们的结果表明，男性和女性在 IT 课程中批评相似的主题，这表明他们不属于不同的用户群体。然而，男性和女性评论之间的差异在每个主题中都会出现。这些差异反映在不同的沟通方式、需求和重点领域上，这些领域是由特定性别的背景、社会化过程和刻板印象塑造的。为了克服这些差异，我们提出了七项指导方针 刻板印象威胁理论 用于设计性别包容性在线课程，这些课程侧重于包容性沟通和代表，创造支持性的学习环境，并实施高质量、具有偏见意识的教育实践。旨在促进女性在计算机科学领域的更多参与和成功。