Two studies--conducted in 1987 and 1988 in high schools in the Madison, Wisconsin, Metropolitan School District--investigated the existence of gender related differences in high school elective computer courses and factors affecting the differences. In the first study, a two-part survey was administered to the total population of students enrolled…

To investigate what children learn during computer programming instruction, students attending a summer computer camp were asked to recall either single lines or chunks of computer programs from either coherent or scrambled programs. The 16 subjects, ages 12 to 17, were divided into three instructional groups: (1) beginners, who were taught to…

The research reported in this paper explores the syntactical and semantic link between computer programming statements and logical principles, and addresses the effects of learning a programming language on logical reasoning ability. Fifth grade students in a public school in Syracuse, New York, were randomly selected as subjects, and then…

The purpose of this study was to investgate the role of self-efficacy expectations in understanding gender differences in the election of college computer science courses. Participants were 368 undergraduate students (males=104, females=264) enrolled in a course fulfilling a general education requirement at a large urban university. A two-page…

The effectiveness of multiple matrix sampling was examined in a study of 495 students' attitudes toward a computer education program. A post hoc analysis of variance was used, with the class as the unit of analysis. The Computer Attitude Scale, a 30-item rating scale, was used to measure attitudes toward learning about and working with computers.…