Resource+Wiki

Primary Sources:
Anderson, N., Lankshear, C., Timms, C., & Courtney, L. (n.d). 'Because it's boring, irrelevant and I don't like computers': Why high school girls avoid professionally-oriented ICT subjects. Computers & Education, 50(4), 1304-1318.

This paper details results from a three year study which surveyed 1453 senior high school girls in Queensland, Australia. The research demonstrates that senior high school girls tend to perceive advanced computing subjects as boring and they express a strong aversion to computers. It lists factors which are most frequently cited with decisions not to consider computing as a career, involving confidence, male bias,, lack of role models, etc. This is relevant to my topic because it articulates the reasons girls avoid computer science within the status quo.

Basawapatna, A. R., Koh, K., & Repenning, A. (2010). Using scalable game design to teach computer science from middle school to graduate school. Annual Joint Conference Integrating Technology Into Computer Science Education, 224.

The paper presents observations made over multiple years in which game design was used to introduce middle school students, college and graduate level students, and even middle school teachers to programming. Results indicate that scalable game design appeals broadly to students, regardless of background, and is not only valuable in generating interest and providing exposure to computer science but also that student projects exhibit transfer of computational thinking patterns to other scientific subjects. It also nicely lays out specific algorithmic and computational patterns evident in various classic video games..

Baytak, A., & Land, S. (2011). Advancing Elementary-School Girls' Programming through Game Design. International Journal Of Gender, Science & Technology, 3(1), 243-253.

In this exploratory case study, a class of 5th grade girls was introduced to programming via the Scratch programming language, illustrating the potential role of game design as a vehicle to involve more girls in computer science. Girls were able to conceptualize technical concepts and utilize them in their scripts, and their involvement and comfort level with computer science were increased as well. It also provides a nice discussion of the relationship between learning by game design and constructionist pedagogy.

Buzzetto-More, N., Ukoha, O., & Rustagi, N. (2010). Unlocking the Barriers to Women and Minorities in Computer Science and Information Systems Studies: Results from a Multi-Methodolical Study Conducted at Two Minority Serving Institutions. Journal Of Information Technology Education, 9115-131.

This article provides a healthy literature review of trends in workforce demand for computer science jobs, as well as numbers demonstrating the dramatic under-representation of women and minorities in these fields, and the economic effects caused by this situation. This info is very useful to me in framing the need to engage more girls in computer science from a young age.

Campbell, N., & Williams, J. E. (1990). Relation of computer attitudes and computer attributions to enrollment in high school computer.. Journal Of Research On Computing In Education, 22(1), 276.

This study discusses how computer skills have joined mathematics as a "filter" restricting educational and career choices on secondary school students, and draws connections between the design of coursework, rates of achievement, and resultant sense of self-efficacy and self-confidence has impact on whether students exposed to computers will further pursue study of computer science. It gives specific practical recommendations on project design and intervention strategies.

Carbonaro, M., Szafron, D., Cutumisu, M., & Schaeffer, J. (2010). Computer-game construction: A gender-neutral attractor to Computing Science. Computers & Education, 55(3), 1098-1111. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.05.007

The authors of this quantiative study assert that: a) computer game creation is a viable activity for teaching higher-order thinking skills essential for science, b) computer game construction that requires scripting teaches valuable computer science abstraction skills, c) this activity is an enjoyable introduction to computer science, and d) outcome measures are gender-neutral-- despite game playing being the domain of boys, girls enjoy the construction aspects. Several instruments were used to measure student attributes, including exit surveys about enjoyment of the activity as well as rubrics on higher-order thinking and computer science skills used in authorship of the games themselves. Participants were 24 females, 26 males, from two 10th grade multi-ethnic classes with no formal experience and no explicit interest in comp sci-- taken from English class. Females scores significantly higher with higher-order thinking skills used in game development; use of comp sci concepts were equivalent across genders, as well as enjoyment of the activity. This study is quite relevant to my topic, and provides evidence for my hunch that girls can be attracted to a computer science program through the use of game construction and interactive story development, and that important skills can actually be taught through such projects.

Cunningham, C. (2011). Girl game designers. New Media & Society, 13(8), 1373-1388.

This qualitative study provides the case study of a video game design workshop hosted by the Girl Scouts using a Girl Scout Style Game modeled after Barbie Fashion Designer to put the young girls into the role of a designer. While the details of this study are not of much interest to me for various reasons (namely the bafflingly gender-typed role the girls were forced into assuming by the nature of the software chosen), the author presents an interesting discussion of the distinction between competency and fluency in technological learning, and goes into a consideration of gender discourses and how they can restrict learning, as well as how some of the girls overcame the gender assumptions imposed upon them by the program staff and appropriated learning into their final projects.

Dahlberg, T., Barnes, T., Buch, K., & Bean, K. (2010). Applying service learning to computer science: attracting and engaging under-represented students. Computer Science Education, 20(3), 169-180.

This article describes a computer science course that uses service learning as a vehicle to accomplish a range of pedagogical and outreach goals, including attracting a diverse student body and engaging them in outreach to younger students; developing leadership and team skills; and developing student attitudes commensurate with retention in a computer science program. results show a positive impact o n these goals. The study provides quantitative data indicating that service learning can promote a sense of self-efficacy and community, but may affect "computing identity" more than it affects computing efficacy and skill level.

Denner, J., Werner, L., Bean, S., & Campe, S. (2005). The Girls Creating Games Program. Frontiers: A Journal Of Women Studies, 26(1), 90-98. This paper describes an after-school and summer program for 6th-8th grade girls designed to address the barriers to girls' active participation in information technology, teaching girls how to program an interactive computer game. They used four simultaneous strategies to build on hey recommendations for overcoming barriers to and providing support for girls' participation in technology: 1) game design and production, 2) pair programming, 3) challenging stereotypes, and 4) identity-forming activities. This particular article does not provide much data indicating what goals were achieved, but does go into excellent detail concerning what these recommendations entail and what hypothetical gain there is to be had from each.

Denner, J., Werner, L., & Ortiz, E. (2012). Computer games created by middle school girls: Can they be used to measure understanding of computer science concepts?. Computers & Education, 58(1), 240-249.

This quantitative study seeks to identify whether the increasingly popular use of game development is effective as a method for teaching three domains of fundamental programming concepts, specifically, algorithmic thinking and programming concepts, organization and documentation, and designing for usability. 59 12-year old girls were taught about various programming concepts and strategies in game design, as well as the importance of code documentation, but were left to their own devices when constructing the games, with no rubric or requirements beyond the directive to create games across five different genres (outlined in article) over the span of 14 months. A coding scheme was developed based on national technology standards to identify the extent to which students' projects used features corresponding with important computer science concepts. Each game was coded for the three concept domains and 24 subcategories. 108 games were coded by one author, while another author coded a subset so they could compare and resolve differences in coding. Basic frequencies were run on each coding category. The resultant games varied in complexity; some programming elements were demonstrated by almost all games, while others appeared in very few. Sample games and teacher requirements had little effect on what the students actually programmed, and complexity of projects waned toward the end of the school year. Several specific concepts seemed difficult, and students seemed to prefer decreasing the complexity of their programs instead of debugging or problem-solving. The authors suggest more guidance with complex concepts, and offerings challenges or competitions to encourage students to strive for more complex solutions. The coding methodology they developed is suitable for reuse in further studies, though. This article is useful to me in providing a case study where girls, specifically, undergo computer science instruction via game development, which is one possible high-interest attractor that I am considering in my inquiry. However, the age group is pretty far off-target, and I'm hoping to find more directly relevant studies.

Dentith, A. (2008). Smart Girls, Hard-Working Girls but Not yet Self-Assured Girls: The Limits of Gender Equity Politics. Canadian Journal Of Education, 31(1), 145-166.

This study interviewed focus groups of 45 students at two affluent high schools in a midwestern school district; the focus groups were segregated by gender and academic standing, and data was only reported from the female groups. The groups were questoned about thir motivations in paticipating in an AP computer science course. Girls' participation in AP courses increased dramatically after the schools started weighting grades accordingly, but their participation was reluctant and mostly in repsonse to pressure to maintain a high GPA. Ultimately this article is not of much use to me and is even less applicable to my student demographic, but does contain some useful discussion of the current push for girls to participate more in science, technology, engineering, and math courses.

Doube, W., & Lang, C. (2012). Gender and Stereotypes in Motivation to Study Computer Programming for Careers in Multimedia. Computer Science Education, 22(1), 63-78.

This article describes a quantitative study done at a university in Melbourne, Australia, investigating factors relating to gender differences in programming, with the ultimate goal of improving the gender balance in computer courses and careers. The primary factor investigated was achievement motivation to learn computer programming and motivation to pursue programming as a career. Whgile this study is off by an age bracket and two continents, it does a good job of digging into just what aspects of the curriculum were appealing to women and what types of careers they were aiming for. there also a couple of nice quotes about the societal impact of excluding women from STEM careers.

Lynn, K. M., Raphael, C., Olefsky, K., & Bachen, C. M. (2003). Bridging the Gender Gap in Computing: An Integrative Approach to Content Design for Girls. Journal Of Educational Computing Research, 28(2), 143-62.

This article discusses girls' reasons for avoiding computers and the problems that ensue from this gender gap. It then discusses various strategies in game design that are being explored for making content appealing to girls, but points out that none of these strategies seem successful at reassuring girls of the long-term relevance and interest of these activities. it then suggests a new strategy appealing to girls' involvement in programming and design. Girls in the experimental group were exposed to a web site designed to appeal to both traditional and nontraditional interests and show how computers were relevant to each of them, basically a bait-and-switch strategy. The strategy boosted girls' interest in computers, programming, and design, increased the girls' sense of the relevance of computers, and increased their motivation to use computers. Ultimately the article was more interesting from a web content design perspective than as a tool to increase girls' participation, though.

Malan, D. J., & Lei tner, H. H. (2007). Scratch for Budding Computer Scientists. Sigcse Bulletin, 39, 223-227.

This article discusses the use of the programming language Scratch as a way to introduce to computer science for beginning college students, and studies a group of students to assess how use of this software affected their experiences. The majority of students in the test group felt that it was a positive influence on their subsequent experiences attempting to learn Java (a much more intense and complex language), exposing the students to general concepts without allowing them to get bogged down in syntactical minutiae. This article is interesting to me as I am hoping to use an implementation of Scratch in my own Classroom.

Thomas, M. K., Ge, X., & Greene, B. A. (2011). Fostering 21st Century Skill Development by Engaging Students in Authentic Game Design Projects in a High School Computer Programming Class. Journal Of Educational Computing Research, 44(4), 391-408.

This study examines problem solving in a high school computer science class, looking at how a gaming environment could be structured to facilitate learning that was "complex and authentic". It looks to determine whether student's inherent interest in gaming can be leveraged to sustain intrinsic motivation using design-based research as well as ethnographic methods, including observational protocols, audio recording of student groups, logs of student work, chats within the software interface, peer evaluations, and the projects themselves. This was a followup to an earlier study using additional recording technologies. Participants were 12 students (11 boys and one girl).

Werner, L. L., Campe, S. S., & Denner, J. J. (2005). Middle School Girls + Games Programming = Information Technology Fluency. Sigite Conference, 301-306.

The paper discusses a voluntary program for middle school girls focusing on design and construction of interactive narrative computer games, and assesses their increased levels of IT fluency knowledge as relates to program support of pair programming and team building activities. It also articulates a distinction between information literacy and fluency, breaking fluency into several subdomains. The paper claims to provide both quantitative and qualitative results, but they are not outlined with much detail. It is possible that more information will follow from the references provided, but at this point is not very helpful except for the conceptual breakdown of fluency subdomains.

Secondary Sources:
Gorriz, C. M., & Medina, C. (2000). Engaging Girls WITH Computers THROUGH SOFTWARE GAMES. Communications Of The ACM, 43(1), 42-49.

This article discusses the fact that girls lose interest in computer early in "the pipeline" and presents a generally market-based viewpoint of the problem. For the most part, the article focuses on attractors to playing games and the differences between girls and boys, and is of little concern to me as far as actual construction/design/programming of games goes; however, it does present some interesting findings that indicate girls prefer collaboration to competition, enjoy non-closure and exploration, like complex social interaction, and are typically "more interested in creating than destroying." This bolsters other resources which have indicated that while boys like to play games, girls greatly prefer to create them.

Experiential Sources:
TechLiminal Workshop Weekend (2012, July 1). Oakland, CA. Field Experience.

I visited two different workshop spaces during an open house to interview Anca Monsiou with TechLiminal and J.D. Zamfirescu from Comrade LLC, who have experience in the larger community teaching programming and other technologies. They also provided me contact information for a number of additional technology educators in the area who have had specific experience both with the programming languages I am considering, and making material and resources available to under-represented populations in the Oakland area.

Juliet Norton (2012, July 17). Concord, CA. Personal Interview.

Juliet is a doctoral student who works with the Digital Media Department of the University of Central Florida. She was previously a Production Assistant at the Media Convergence Laboratory focusing on tasks such as asset-engine integration, game play conceptualization, and pipeline management. That exposure to interactive simulation and game design inspired her to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2008. Her focus continues to be Human Computer Interaction, but she desires to explore other subject areas to support research on unique interaction techniques to improve the user's level of immersion and sense of presence. I spoke to her about her experiences as a female in an advanced computer science program, and also about her perspective as an instructor in summer sessions for undergraduates as well as high school and middle school students. She proffered useful insight into ways I could make an introductory computer science curriculum accessible, engaging, and strategically improve students' future college and career prospects.

Randall Depew (2012, July). Concord, CA. Personal Interview.

Randy Depew teaches Technology in the Classroom, Introduction to Teaching, Secondary Teaching Strategies, and Strategies for Culturally Diverse Classrooms in the teacher education program at Chapman University in Concord; he is also lead teacher of the Digital Safari Multimedia Academy at Mount Diablo High School in Concord. Randy has recognized expertise in the area of curriculum development, cross-curricular integration, project based learning and career academy development. He has presented on these subjects at several state and national conferences and has received considerable recognition for his teaching.Additionally, Randy’s program, the Digital Safari Academy, has received recognition from several organizations and his students have been recognized with over 20 awards in the past eight years in the California Student Media Festival including Multimedia Student of the Year five times. I have been working continuously with Randy this summer in developing curriculum for next year, with the intention of making it as inclusive and attractive to historically underrepresented groups as possible while still maintaining high rigor and preparing students for both career and college. He has explained the trends in enrollment in his program, especially with regard to gender equity, and I have found invaluable his discussion of general teaching philosophy, constructivism, and pedagogical approaches toward exposing this specific student body to the world of technology.

University of California, Riverside Extension: Computer Concepts and Applications CTC-approved Program (February - June, 2012). Riverside, CA. Field Experience.

In order to extend my pedagogical knowledge in preparation for creating computer science classes this next year, I took a sequence of online and in-person course with UC Riverside to explore teaching methods, tools, classroom strategies, and ways to make technical material more engaging, accessible, and equitable. It exposed me to a great number of tools which I will use in developing my curriculum, and gave me helpful insight into what sorts of skills and concepts I can expect students of different grade levels to be able to manage.

Computer Science Teachers Association

CSTA is a membership organization that supports and promotes the teaching of computer science and other computing disciplines at the K-12 level, helping teachers and students to better understand the computing disciplines and to more successfully prepare themselves to teach and to learn. Their primary focus is equity and advocacy. They have a CSEd Week event scheduled for the fall semester which I plan on participating in. The Golden Gate chapter of the organization meets during the school year in Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley, and I intend to regularly attend meetings and participate in events and professional development workshops they hold for teachers. I also joined the Association for Computing Machinery, a more general trade organization, which has a subgroup council focused on issues of women in technology, and also hosts ELearn magazine, which concerns itself with technology in education.