research-article

Gender-dependent Contribution, Code and Creativity in a Virtual Programming Course

Authors:

Isabella Graßl,

Gordon FraserAuthors Info & Claims

WiPSCE '22: Proceedings of the 17th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

Article No.: 6, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/3556787.3556861

Published: 31 October 2022 Publication History

Abstract

Since computer science is still mainly male dominated, academia, industry and education jointly seek ways to motivate and inspire girls, for example by introducing them to programming at an early age. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has forced many such endeavours to move to an online setting. While the gender-dependent differences in programming courses have been studied previously, for example revealing that girls may feel safer in same-sex groups, much less is known about gender-specific differences in online programming courses. In order to investigate whether gender-specific differences can be observed in online courses, we conducted an online introductory programming course for Scratch, in which we observed the gender-specific characteristics of participants with respect to how they interact, their enjoyment, the code they produce, and the creativity exposed by their programs. Overall, we observed no significant differences between how girls participated in all-female vs. mixed groups, and girls generally engaged with the course more actively than boys. This suggests that online courses can be a useful means to avoid gender-dependent group dynamics. However, when encouraging creative freedom in programming, girls and boys seem to fall back to socially inherited stereotypical behavior also in an online setting, influencing the choice of programming concepts applied. This may inhibit learning and is a challenge that needs to be addressed independently of whether courses are held online.

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Cited By

Porhonar PKahtan HCarroll FSimon T(2025)Bridging the Gap: Engaging Girls in Computing Through Physical TechnologiesInnovative and Intelligent Digital Technologies; Towards an Increased Efficiency10.1007/978-3-031-71649-2_4(49-62)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71649-2_4
Bentz AStandl B(2023)Beyond Gender Differences: Can Scratch Programs Indicate Students' Preferences?Proceedings of the 18th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research10.1145/3605468.3609771(1-10)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3605468.3609771

Index Terms

Gender-dependent Contribution, Code and Creativity in a Virtual Programming Course
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. K-12 education
  2. User characteristics
    1. Gender

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WiPSCE '22: Proceedings of the 17th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

October 2022

130 pages

ISBN:9781450398534

DOI:10.1145/3556787

Copyright © 2022 ACM.

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Published: 31 October 2022

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primary::programming, 01JA2021

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WiPSCE '22

WiPSCE '22: The 17th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

October 31 - November 2, 2022

Morschach, Switzerland

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WiPSCE '22 Paper Acceptance Rate 14 of 41 submissions, 34%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 104 of 279 submissions, 37%

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Cited By

Porhonar PKahtan HCarroll FSimon T(2025)Bridging the Gap: Engaging Girls in Computing Through Physical TechnologiesInnovative and Intelligent Digital Technologies; Towards an Increased Efficiency10.1007/978-3-031-71649-2_4(49-62)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71649-2_4
Bentz AStandl B(2023)Beyond Gender Differences: Can Scratch Programs Indicate Students' Preferences?Proceedings of the 18th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research10.1145/3605468.3609771(1-10)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3605468.3609771

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