Cultural stereotypes as gatekeepers: increasing girls' interest in computer science and engineering by diversifying stereotypes.

Digital literacy is considered to be crucial for social and professional participation. Hence, several projects have been launched in school, as well as extracurricular activities to promote digital literacy in middle school. They aim, among other things, to increase interest in the so-called STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), which include computer science. Interest in a topic is described in the literature as a crucial factor for learning success and career choice. Still, there is a potential for current research on the expression and distribution of interest in computer science. Therefore, this study aims to address this research gap by examining interest in computer science. The exploration of interest is expanded to include gender aspects and pupils’ dispositions. Given the significantly lower number of women studying in STEM fields, there is a particular focus on an improved understanding of the interests of female pupils as early as middle school. Moreover, the literature suggests that pupils’ dispositions should also be considered in instructional design to achieve stable interest. In this context, the following two dispositions shine out in literature and are therefore focused on in this article: first, interest in contextual, people-related topics (mainly found among women), and second, interest in factual, object-related topics (mainly found among men). In summary, this study investigates how pupils’ interest in computer science is expressed before and after a programming intervention and how it is distributed across gender and dispositions. Therefore, the study surveyed 8th-grade pupils (N \(=\) 114) about their preferences and assessed their interest in computer science before and after an intervention with unplugged materials and playful robots. Results show that all groups of pupils find computer science interesting, and the intervention slightly increased interest. Girls show a marginally lower interest in computer science. Furthermore, the results indicate that interest in computer science did not correlate with interest in contextual or factual dispositions.

People can make decisions to join a group based solely on exposure to that group's physical environment. Four studies demonstrate that the gender difference in interest in computer science is influenced by exposure to environments associated with computer scientists. In Study 1, simply changing the objects in a computer science classroom from those considered stereotypical of computer science (e.g., Star Trek poster, video games) to objects not considered stereotypical of computer science (e.g., nature poster, phone books) was sufficient to boost female undergraduates' interest in computer science to the level of their male peers. Further investigation revealed that the stereotypical broadcast a masculine stereotype that discouraged women's sense of ambient belonging and subsequent interest in the environment (Studies 2, 3, and 4) but had no similar effect on men (Studies 3, 4). This masculine stereotype prevented women's interest from developing even in environments entirely populated by other women (Study 2). Objects can thus come to broadcast stereotypes of a group, which in turn can deter people who do not identify with these stereotypes from joining that group.

Parental support is a predictor of children's career interest and aspirations. However, mother and father support affects youth career choices differently. To understand how perceived mothers' and fathers' support affect career interest in computer science (CS), we developed two path models using both mother and father support gains to predict youths' interest in CS. We hypothesized that perceived father's and mother's support would relate to youths' interest in CS via youths' perception of CS utility value as a mediator. We found that both mother and father support leads to interest in CS. However, father support was found to affect CS interest via the mediator utility-value beliefs. To provide explanations for these differences we used student interview data to explore how participants in our study perceived parental support.

This Innovative Practice Full Paper discusses a coding/programming academy that used games and robotic programming as engaging hands-on approaches to teach 6 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sup> grade (the first grade in secondary education in USA) females coding/programming concepts to increase their knowledge and interest in computer science. Careers in computer science continue to grow, but fewer women than men are even considering these careers. Increasing participation of women in coding/programming is necessary to meet the growing demand for computing professionals to develop a diverse workforce. Today, many organizations are implementing programming coding/programming academies/camps that attempt to engage students in computer science, at an early age, by exposing them to fun and interesting computer science skills in coding/programming. We have developed a coding/programming academy that uses educational robotics and hands-on game applications to demonstrate computing concepts to young females. To address pressing equity issues of the lack of females in computer science careers, the goal of this summer coding/programming academy was to educate and empower young females, at an early age, to discover computer science careers, which has been one of the first attempts to establish a coding/programming academy for females in our region. Our coding/programming academy differs from others in several ways. First, it was for 6 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sup> -grade females only, to take advantage of preferences of noncompetitive and social learning opportunities, in order to improve female participation. Second, we hired female instructors and invited female professionals from local industries to assist the academy by serving as mentors. Third, it introduced both robotic and game coding/programming to the females. Fourth, it adopted social learning, e.g., pair programming. A formal assessment of the 2018 academy found that the academy's female participants experienced a significant increase in knowledge and interest in computer science. This paper describes the organization, coordination, content, and assessment of the coding/programming academy. It describes how the academy was organized and taught, which includes a brief description of the instructional materials, the concepts taught in each hands-on session, how the academy was assessed and the assessment results, and the first-year experience of conducting the coding/programming academy, and lessons learned. The intent of this paper is to provide all the information needed for others to host similar academies and further prompt the effort to increase female participation in computer science careers.

Women obtain more than half of U.S. undergraduate degrees in biology, chemistry, and mathematics, yet they earn less than 20% of computer science, engineering, and physics undergraduate degrees (National Science Foundation, 2014a). Gender differences in interest in computer science, engineering, and physics appear even before college. Why are women represented in some science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields more than others? We conduct a critical review of the most commonly cited factors explaining gender disparities in STEM participation and investigate whether these factors explain differential gender participation across STEM fields. Math performance and discrimination influence who enters STEM, but there is little evidence to date that these factors explain why women's underrepresentation is relatively worse in some STEM fields. We introduce a model with three overarching factors to explain the larger gender gaps in participation in computer science, engineering, and physics than in biology, chemistry, and mathematics: (a) masculine cultures that signal a lower sense of belonging to women than men, (b) a lack of sufficient early experience with computer science, engineering, and physics, and (c) gender gaps in self-efficacy. Efforts to increase women's participation in computer science, engineering, and physics may benefit from changing masculine cultures and providing students with early experiences that signal equally to both girls and boys that they belong and can succeed in these fields. (PsycINFO Database Record

This qualitative case study describes how participation in an outside-of-school program sustained middle school girls’ interest in computer science and positively influenced their computational perspectives. Data consists of interviews, observations, and videos analyzed from ten girls participating in a nine-month program during 2017–2018. Connected learning and computational participation are the study’s theoretical frameworks and were incorporated into its research questions, data collection methods, and analysis strategies. Findings illustrate 1) girls’ sustained interest in and positive attitudes toward computer science; 2) girls’ evolving confidence and awareness of computational perspectives; and 3) the importance of group work in nurturing girls’ computational participation. This study contributes to the research on strategies for addressing the gender gap in computing through providing informal learning opportunities for young girls.

This article presents a rationale for changing the current emphasis of precollege computer courses. It suggests that as an interim approach, to be used before computers are integrated effectively across the curriculum, computer courses deemphasize BASIC programming skills and instead focus on teaching applications software skills. The research evidence regarding the quality of computer literacy courses is reviewed, and the parallel cognitive and affective consequences of programming and applications software are discussed. The primary source of evidence regarding student interest in specific undergraduate majors comes from reports on college-bound seniors prepared for the College Board (College Board, 1983b, 1984, 1985). More than 800,000 high school seniors annually complete information regarding their intended college majors, choosing from a list of over 115 fields or specializations. Computer science was first listed as a possible major choice in 1974, with subcategories of systems analysis and data processing added in 1975. Between 1973 and 1983, interest in computer science rose dramatically. Less than 1% of high school seniors chose computer science as their intended major in 1974 (College Board, 1974), w ereas in 1983, more than 10% of high school seniors chose it (College Board, 1983b). In the next two years, however, interest in computer science took a sudden downward turn, with the level of interest in 1985 approximating that of 1981 (see Figure 1). This trend represents a decline of 27%, with women's interest decreasing 35% and men's interest 22%. No other intended major suffered such dramatic shifts during the same period of time. Although this rise and fall may simply reflect the fortunes of the computer industry in general, another explanation for this decline in interest also may be tenable. Students in the 1970s enrolled in untried and novel computer curricula. By 1985, due to their increased exposure to computers and computer literacy courses at elementary and secondary school levels, students had more information with which to evaluate computer science (Becker, 1983a, 1983c; Lockheed, 1985a). The increase in students taking precollege computer courses began around 1979. In 1980, 15% of elementary and 50% of secondary schools provided students access to microcomputers in their instructional programs (Goor, 1982); by 1985, 82% of elementary and 93% of secondary schools provided students access to computers (Becker, 1985). The most frequent use of microcomputers was for national, state, and locally mandated computer literacy courses (Boyer, 1983; College Board, 1983a; National Science Board Commission on Precollege Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology, 1983). In general, the mandates provide for required, not elective, computer course participation. It is the contention of the authors that the generally poor quality and restricted curriculum of these courses, which in 1985 were required for many high school seniors, accounts at least in part for the declining interest in computer science at the college level. Inadequate Computer Literacy Courses Early computer literacy courses, which stressed learning to program in BASIC, were generally of poor quality in terms of teacher training, course curSupport for the preparation of this paper was provided by Educational Testing Service. Marlaine E. Lockheed is a Sociologist in the Education and Training Department, The World Bank, 1818 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20433. Her specializations are the sociology of education, education technology, and gender in education. Ellen B. Mandinach is Associate Research Scientist, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, NJ 08541. Her special zations are individual differences and educational uses of microcomputers.

The present research examines undergraduates’ stereotypes of the people in computer science, and whether changing these stereotypes using the media can influence women’s interest in computer science. In Study 1, college students at two U.S. West Coast universities (N = 293) provided descriptions of computer science majors. Coding these descriptions revealed that computer scientists were perceived as having traits that are incompatible with the female gender role, such as lacking interpersonal skills and being singularly focused on computers. In Study 2, college students at two U.S. West Coast universities (N = 54) read fabricated newspaper articles about computer scientists that either described them as fitting the current stereotypes or no longer fitting these stereotypes. Women who read that computer scientists no longer fit the stereotypes expressed more interest in computer science than those who read that computer scientists fit the stereotypes. In contrast, men’s interest in computer science did not differ across articles. Taken together, these studies suggest that stereotypes of academic fields influence who chooses to participate in these fields, and that recruiting efforts to draw more women into computer science would benefit from media efforts that alter how computer scientists are depicted.

The impact of an issue-centered problem-based learning curriculum on 6th grade girls’ understanding of and interest in computer science

There is scientific knowledge about how to teach software programming, and the necessity to foster young learners' interest in computer science is broadly addressed. However, there is a lack of research on how to teach programming skills in a way that increases the learners' interest in the topic. We present a training session for young students, in order to support the acquisition of programming skills and, at the same time, a positive view towards computer science. The programming environment is based on a visual block-based application within a living lab. Thus, the abstract concept of software programming is presented within a real context and tightly connected to real experiences. In this training, the learners were introduced to a living lab and to programming concepts in order to acquire basics of programming. Two user studies with 44 7th and 8th grade students were conducted, specifically, the students' interest in computer science and their acquisition of programming skills were assessed. Two instructional interventions to support knowledge acquisition, namely worked examples and instructional procedures, were compared. The results did not strongly support one of these instructional interventions, thus, both seem to be appropriate in order to help learners to acquire basic programming skills. In sum, the results show that the tight connection of the training session to a real-world scenario can foster programming skills. This paper contributes by showing the potential of using visual block-based programming in the context of living labs in order to enable students to begin with programming activities.

Official European statistics of education indicate that the number of students entering tertiary education have significantly increased between 2000 and 2006 [1], and indicate a trend that will continue. However, this increase is not reflected in every field of study; computer science and engineering are among those that have decreased each year, evidence of a decline of interest in following this career on the part of students. As a response to this disturbing fact, this paper aims to identify some of the possible consequences that this trend could produce in Europe. It will highlight the impacts in economic, social, political and pedagogical fields and explain how these segments will be affected if the decline in computer science persists. Supported by previous investigations and official reports, this analysis provides some examples of the problems already produced by the declining interest in computer science in Europe and proposes solutions such as teaching methods and learning strategies to attract more students to this field and therefore limit the negative effects in a near future.

Research on the effects of playing video games has been limited by a preoccupation with possible negative repercussions. Nevertheless, research has shown that video games can have positive effects on young players’ social lives. The existing body of research, however, has largely ignored the more computer-related aspects of video game play and its effects. This study provides empirical evidence to support theoretical arguments about the relationship between playing video games and computers. The type of scientific thinking encouraged by video games and the technological abilities needed to play video games is suggested to result in an increase in players’ confidence with computers and interest in computer science. These potential relationships are examined using data from over 1,000 undergraduate students to empirically assess the relationship between video game play and: 1) confidence with computers, and 2) interest in computer science. The results indicate that game play is statistically significant as a predictor of confidence and interest. In comparison to the other predictors in the model, the strength of the effect from playing video games is relatively very strong. The findings suggest that exposure to video games as a recreational technology help inform players’ abilities with non-recreational technology and build an interest in technology in general.

Building on research that identifies and addresses issues of women’s underrepresentation in computing, this article describes promising practices in undergraduate research experiences that promote women’s long-term interest in computer science and engineering. Specifically, this article explores whether and how REU programs include programmatic elements designed to promote gender equity and identifies specific mechanisms that are seen as effective in supporting women in REU programs and in encouraging them to persist in computer science and engineering fields. The findings are drawn from a comprehensive study that includes a national survey of REU programs, follow-up interviews with REU program directors from across the country, and an in-depth evaluation of one REU program over four years.

Reversing the landslide in computer-related degree programs

Three studies examine the relationship between women’s expression of interest in computer science and identity expression threat, the concern about conveying an identity inconsistent with one's gender role. Undergraduates perceive academic majors to signal who they are to peers (Study 1). Women imagining majoring in computer science report greater identity expression threat from their peers outside computer science than from those inside the field (Study 2). Women report greater identity expression threat in computer science (but not biology or English) than do men. Identity expression threat mediates gender differences in reported likelihood of downplaying interest in computer science (Study 3). Women considering computer science perceive they will be doubly isolated, both from those within and outside the field.