Gender issues

For my research paper, I would like to examine gender differences in CALL. I studied psychology as an undergraduate and I remember taking a course called Psychology of Women. Hillary Clinton's candidacy also reminded me of this course.

Anyway, I'm interested in seeing how comfortable the different genders are with using technology and with performing in front of others face to face or over the computer. Will men be more self-conscious with making mistakes over the computer, or will women be more self-conscious performing in front of a group? Or will women do better because they can feed off of the other students in front of them? Or are there no differences at all?

Research and statistics show that women are increasingly likely to go to college and more likely to complete it than men, so this kind of research seems pertinent. I'm still working on the methodology right now, but I'm leaning towards reciting a foreign language dialogue over webcam, voice chat, and face to face and comparing fluency, hesitation devices, and accuracy.

My subjects for this study would be adults. I know there's a paucity of research regarding children, but my interest is not in K-12 teaching. I taught children when I lived in Japan and I gave it my best shot. But it's just not for me. I had fun sometimes, but I just didn't like the lack of control I had regarding criticism. Sometimes parents can be too bossy or stifling.

Have a good spring break, everyone.