Gender Differences in Scratch Game Design

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to understand elementary school students' preferences in interactive game design. By examining the processes of elementary school students using Scratch to design and create games, this study intends to investigate gender differences in terms of computer literacy, multimedia application, codes and game design preferences in order to understand the factors influencing students' achievement and motivation in computer science. This study was carried out in the setting of a Scratch contest. In total, 46 contest participants were recruited. Questionnaires on programming concepts derived from computing thinking and analysis of student works were utilized as the major research method. The research results indicate that (1) girls had significantly better knowledge of counting loops than boys; (2) boys used significantly more built-in costumes than girls; (3) boys used more diverse sensing blocks than girls; (4) boys incorporated more game design mechanisms than girls; (5) girls were likely to incorporate positive feedback, while boys were likely to incorporate negative feedback and both positive and negative feedback. Index Terms - Game design, Gender and technology, Children's programming, Computational thinking