Efforts to increase the participation of groups historically underrepresented in computing studies, and in the computing workforce, are well documented. It is a national effort with funding from a variety of sources being allocated to research in broadening participation in computing (BPC). Many of the BPC efforts are funded by the National…

Gender difference approaches to the participation of women in computing have not provided adequate explanations for women's declining interest in computer science (CS) and related technical fields. Indeed, the search for gender differences can work against diversity which we define as a cross-gender spectrum of characteristics, interests,…

"Co-design"--including youth development staff along with curriculum designers--is the key to developing an effective program that is both scalable and sustainable. This article describes Build IT, a two-year afterschool and summer curriculum designed to help middle school girls develop fluency in information technology (IT), interest in…

Computer game programming has been touted as a promising strategy for engaging children in the kinds of thinking that will prepare them to be producers, not just users of technology. But little is known about what they learn when programming a game. In this article, we present a strategy for coding student games, and summarize the results of an…

Enrollment in Computing Science university programs is at a dangerously low level. A major reason for this is the general lack of interest in Computing Science by females. In this paper, we discuss our experience with using a computer game construction environment as a vehicle to encourage female participation in Computing Science. Experiments…

It's no secret that fewer and fewer women are entering computer science fields. Attracting high school girls to computer science is only part of the solution. Retaining them while they are in higher education or the workforce is also a challenge. To solve this, there is a need to show girls that computer science is a wide-open field that offers…

The aim of this study was to assess the learning effectiveness and motivational appeal of a computer game for learning computer memory concepts, which was designed according to the curricular objectives and the subject matter of the Greek high school Computer Science (CS) curriculum, as compared to a similar application, encompassing identical…

Purpose: The declining participation of young American females in computing fields negatively impacts diversity in the computing-related workforce. While computing in China is also dominated by men, career prospects are positively perceived by Chinese women. The purpose of this paper is to investigate both countries' female gender perceptions…

The purpose of this research is to identify the causal attributions of business computing students in an introductory computer programming course, in the computer science department at Notre Dame University, Louaize. Forty-five male and female undergraduates who completed the computer programming course that extended for a 13-week semester…

This article argues that research on gender and adult learning too often regards men and women as unified and separate groups, and does not take intra-gender variation into account. It presents one possible approach to address this problem, in a study of 142 women and 35 men attending basic computer courses in Swedish municipal adult education…

The under representation of women and minorities in undergraduate computer science and information systems programs is a pervasive and persistent problem in the United States. Needed is a better understanding of the background and psychosocial factors that attract, or repel, minority students from computing disciplines. An examination of these…

Enrollment in undergraduate computer-science programs has dipped all over the country, and among women it has almost vanished, dropping 70 percent between 2000 and 2005. Observers cite different reasons for the drop, including the dot-com bust a few years ago is one, but universities are beginning to agree on one cause that is within their…

It has been well established in the literature that girls are turning their backs on computing courses at all levels of the education system. One reason given for this is that the computer learning environment is not conducive to girls, and it is often suggested that they would benefit from learning computing in a single-sex environment. The…

Discussed are the results of a questionnaire which concerned students' course choices and why students chose not to study computing. The lack of human orientation, mathematical ability, and lack of computer contact in secondary schools are identified. (KR)

Few early intervention efforts have improved the representation of women in computer science and engineering (CSE) disciplines, but pair programming has shown promise for reducing gender differences among college students. The current study is the first to examine this promising practice in middle school. In an effort to better understand what…