GENDER AND SCRATCH: EXPLORING SUPPORT FOR ONLINE GENDERED SETTINGS
Open Access
- Author:
- Negron, Adrian Ernesto
- Graduate Program:
- Information Sciences and Technology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- March 21, 2018
- Committee Members:
- Mary Beth Rosson, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
- Keywords:
- IT gender differences
Computational thinking - Abstract:
- Researchers who have investigated gender differences within STEM fields have produced a significant body of literature, primarily focused on assessing and understanding the inequalities that women face when entering these fields. The computer information science (CIS) field is a subfield within STEM that has seen a continuous decrease in participation and retention of women (Wang, Hong, Ravitz, & Ivory, 2015). Some of the influential factors behind this continuous decline include gender differences in self-efficacy, social encouragement, the CS environment, stereotypes and academic exposure (Beyer, Rynes, Perrault, Hay, & Haller, 2003; Cheryan, Plaut, Davies, & Steele, 2009; Rosson, Carroll, & Sinha, 2011). With respect to CIS introductory education, middle school children are commonly identified as a desirable age group, because early introduction to the CIS ideas might help to combat some of the problematic factors (i.e., before the impacts become too entrenched; Armoni, Meerbaum-Salant, & Ben-Ari, 2015; Carter, 2006). However, while many researchers have explored gender differences in CIS education among middle school students, little has been done to understand the nature of such factors as part of an online environment. In this study, I present a qualitative analysis of student discussions within the Scratch programming community. The analysis examines comments that are posted in forums that are marked with varying gender cues. The research objective was to determine whether factors such as self-efficacy, social encouragement and stereotyped references are apparent in boys’ and girls’ discussions about their Scratch projects, and if so what implications they may have for the children’s online learning experiences.