skip to main content
10.1145/3137065.3137081acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PageswipsceConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Learning Abstraction in Computer Science: A Gender Perspective

Published: 08 November 2017 Publication History

Abstract

In a previous study, we investigated a framework for teaching abstraction in computer science (CS) in the context of an introductory CS course for 7th-grade students. The framework was found effective for developing CS abstraction skills. In this paper, we describe a study that investigated teaching abstraction in CS to 7th-grade students through the perspective of gender. Specifically, we compared the CS abstraction abilities of boys and girls taking the introductory CS course in 7th grade (using the Scratch environment). We also examined the difference in the effect of the teaching strategy on CS abstraction abilities between boys and girls. Our findings show a significant advantage of girls over boys regarding several aspects of CS abstraction. We also found that the framework for teaching CS abstraction, which was already established in our previous study as effective in the context of an introductory course for 7th-grade students, has an enhanced effect in this context when it comes to girls. This enhancement was manifested by a better overall performance by the girls, when comparing boys and girls that took an introductory CS course in which this framework was used. It was also manifested by the girls' deeper and more reliable perception of CS. We conjecture that this framework has the potential to affect girls' self-efficacy, and as a result to create a positive effect by encouraging and motivating girls to pursue CS education beyond this introductory course. That is, this framework has the potential to contribute to solving the issue of underrepresentation of females at the different stages of CS education, or in other words, to widening the CS pipeline for females.

References

[1]
Aharoni, Dan. "Cogito, Ergo sum! cognitive processes of students dealing with data structures." ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 32.1 (2000): 26--30.
[2]
Aho, Alfred V., and Ullman, Jeffrey D. Foundations of Computer Science. Computer Science Press, New York, NY. 1992.
[3]
Armoni, Michal. "On teaching abstraction in CS to novices." Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching 32.3, (2013): 265--284.
[4]
Armoni, Michal, and Ben-Ari, Mordechai. Computer Science Concepts in Scratch. https://stwww1.weizmann.ac.il/scratch/scratch_en/ l: Weizmann Institute of Science, 2013 (accessed 03 2017).
[5]
Armoni, Michal, and Judith Gal-Ezer. "Reduction--an abstract thinking pattern: the case of the computational models course." ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 38.1 (2006): 389--393.
[6]
Armoni, Michal, and Judith Gal-Ezer. "Non-determinism: An abstract concept in computer science studies." Computer Science Education 17.4 (2007): 243--262.
[7]
Armoni, Michal. and Judith Gal-Ezer. Early computing education -- Why? What? When? Who? ACM Inroads Magazine, 5(4), (2014): 54--59.
[8]
Armoni, Michal, and Judith Gal-Ezer. "High school computer science education paves the way for higher education: the Israeli case." Computer Science Education 24.2--3 (2014): 101--122.
[9]
Britner, Shari L., and Frank Pajares. "Self-efficacy beliefs, motivation, race, and gender in middle school science." Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering 7.4 (2001).
[10]
Bruner, Jerome S. The Process of Education. Harvard University Press, 1960.
[11]
Camp, Tracy. The incredible shrinking pipeline. Communications of the ACM, 40. 1997: 103--110.
[12]
Carter, Lori. Why students with an apparent aptitude for computer science don't choose to major in computer science. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 38.1. (2006): 27--31.
[13]
Chi, Michelene T. H. "Quantifying qualitative analyses of verbal data: A practical guide." The Journal of the Learning Sciences 6.3, (1997): 271--315.
[14]
Corno, Lyn, and Eric M. Anderman, eds. Handbook of educational psychology. Routledge, 2015.
[15]
Corder, Colin. Teaching Hard, Teaching Soft: A Structured Approach to Planning and Running Effective Training Courses. Aldershot: Gower, 1990.
[16]
Delgado-Rico, Elena, Carretero-Dios, Hugo, and Ruch, Willibald. "Content validity evidences in test development: An applied perspective." International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology 12.3, (2012): 449-- 460
[17]
Dijkstra, Edsger W. "The humble programmer." Communications of the ACM 15.10, (1972): 859--866.
[18]
Dijkstra, Edsger. W. (1975). About robustness and the like, EWD 452. The Archive of Dijkstra's Manuscripts. Available in http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/
[19]
Eidelman, Larisa, and Orit Hazzan. "Sectoral and gender-wise analysis of the choice of Computer Science studies in Israeli high schools." The Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching 27.4 (2008): 391.
[20]
Ericsson, K. Anders, and Simon, Herbert A. "How to study thinking in everyday life: Contrasting think-aloud protocols with descriptions and explanations of thinking." Mind, Culture, and Activity 5.3, (1998): 178--18.
[21]
Fisher, Allan, and Jane Margolis. "Unlocking the clubhouse: the Carnegie Mellon experience." ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 34.2 (2002): 79--83.
[22]
Galpin, Vashti. "Women in computing around the world." ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 34.2 (2002): 94--100.
[23]
Gamma, Erich, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides. Design patterns: Abstraction and reuse of object-oriented design. In European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (1993): 406--431.
[24]
Haberman, Bruria. "High-school students' attitudes regarding procedural abstraction." Education and Information Technologies 9.2 (2004): 131--145.
[25]
Halpern, Diane F. Sex differences in cognitive abilities. Psychology press, 2013.
[26]
Hartmanis, Juris. Turing Award lecture on computational complexity and the nature of computer science. Communications of the ACM 37.10, (1994): 37--43.
[27]
Hazzan, Orit. "Reflections on teaching abstraction and other soft ideas." ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 40.2, (2008): 40--43.
[28]
Hazzan, Orit and Tomayko, James E. Reflection and abstraction in learning software engineering's human aspects. Computer 38.6 (2005): 39--45.
[29]
Hyde, Janet S., and Marcia C. Linn. "Gender differences in verbal ability: A meta-analysis." (1988): 53.
[30]
Java-Util. (2017). http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/ArrayList.html. Retrieved 02 2017
[31]
Ilias, Aristidis, and Maria Kordaki. Undergraduate studies in computer science and engineering: Gender issues. Inroads -- ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 38 (2006): 81--85.
[32]
Kramer, Jeff. "Abstraction -- is it teachable? the devil is in the detail." In Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, (March 2003): 32--32.
[33]
Maccoby, E. E., and C. N. Jacklin. "The psychology of gender differences." (1974).
[34]
Meerbaum-Salant, Orni. Armoni, Michal, and Ben-Ari, Mordechai,. "Learning computer science concepts with Scratch." Computer Science Education 23.3, (2013): 239--264.
[35]
Or-Bach, Rachel, and Ilana Lavy. "Cognitive activities of abstraction in object orientation: an empirical study." ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 36.2 (2004): 82--86.
[36]
Perrenet, Jacob, Jan Friso Groote, and Eric Kaasenbrood. "Exploring students' understanding of the concept of algorithm: levels of abstraction." ACM SIGCSE Bulletin. 37.3. ACM, (2005): 64--68.
[37]
Perrenet, Jacob, and Eric Kaasenbrood. "Levels of abstraction in students' understanding of the concept of algorithm: the qualitative perspective." ACM SIGCSE Bulletin. 38.3. ACM, (2006): 270--274.
[38]
Schwill, Andreas. "Fundamental ideas of computer science." Bulletin-European Association for Theoretical Computer Science, 53, (1994): 274--274.
[39]
Soloway, Elliot. "Learning to program= learning to construct mechanisms and explanations." Communications of the ACM 29.9 (1986): 850--858.
[40]
Statter, David, and Armoni, Michal. "Teaching Abstract Thinking in Introduction to Computer Science for 7th Graders." In Proceedings of the 11th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education, (October 2016): 80--83.
[41]
Statter, David, and Armoni, Michal. Teaching Abstraction in Computer Science in 7th Grade. submitted.
[42]
Stolin, Yuila, and Hazzan, Orit. Students' understanding of computer science soft ideas: the case of programming paradigm. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 39.2, (2007): 65--69.
[43]
Weiss, Elisabeth M., et al. "Sex differences in cognitive functions." Personality and individual differences 35.4 (2003): 863--875.
[44]
Zweben, Stuart, and Betsy Bizot. "2014 Taulbee Survey." COMPUTING 27.5 (2015).
[45]
Zur Bargury, I. A new curriculum for junior-high in computer science. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education. ACM (2012): 204--208

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Interaction Patterns During Block-based Programming Activities Predict Computational Thinking: Analysis of the Differences in Gender, Cognitive Load, Spatial Ability, and Programming ProficiencyAI, Computer Science and Robotics Technology10.5772/acrt.363Online publication date: 26-Jul-2024
  • (2024)Teaching the Bubble Sort Algorithm Using CS Unplugged Activities at the K-12 LevelACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/370612025:1(1-22)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Empowering Female Students in Computing Science: Teachers’ attitudes towards a Career Orientation NarrativeProceedings of the 19th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research10.1145/3677619.3678126(1-2)Online publication date: 16-Sep-2024
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
WiPSCE '17: Proceedings of the 12th Workshop on Primary and Secondary Computing Education
November 2017
128 pages
ISBN:9781450354288
DOI:10.1145/3137065
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 08 November 2017

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. ANOVA
  2. Abstraction
  3. Gender
  4. Scratch
  5. problem-solving

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed limited

Conference

WiPSCE '17

Acceptance Rates

WiPSCE '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 16 of 37 submissions, 43%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 104 of 279 submissions, 37%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)42
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1
Reflects downloads up to 18 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Interaction Patterns During Block-based Programming Activities Predict Computational Thinking: Analysis of the Differences in Gender, Cognitive Load, Spatial Ability, and Programming ProficiencyAI, Computer Science and Robotics Technology10.5772/acrt.363Online publication date: 26-Jul-2024
  • (2024)Teaching the Bubble Sort Algorithm Using CS Unplugged Activities at the K-12 LevelACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/370612025:1(1-22)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Empowering Female Students in Computing Science: Teachers’ attitudes towards a Career Orientation NarrativeProceedings of the 19th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research10.1145/3677619.3678126(1-2)Online publication date: 16-Sep-2024
  • (2024)Making Abstraction Concrete in the Elementary ClassroomProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630890(540-546)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
  • (2024)Promoting young learners’ computational thinking with AI-based robots and the ICAP model in blended learning contextsInteractive Learning Environments10.1080/10494820.2024.2308101(1-15)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2024
  • (2023)Computer Science Education Research in IsraelPast, Present and Future of Computing Education Research10.1007/978-3-031-25336-2_18(395-420)Online publication date: 18-Apr-2023
  • (2022)Exploring Gender Differences in Coding at the Beginning of Primary SchoolFrontiers in Psychology10.3389/fpsyg.2022.88728013Online publication date: 20-Sep-2022
  • (2022)How Can We Help Students Reason About the Mechanisms by Which Genes Affect Traits?Genetics Education10.1007/978-3-030-86051-6_5(71-86)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2022
  • (2022)Explanatory black boxes and mechanistic reasoningJournal of Research in Science Teaching10.1002/tea.2181760:4(915-933)Online publication date: 18-Sep-2022
  • (2020)Teaching Abstraction in Computer Science to 7th Grade StudentsACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/337214320:1(1-37)Online publication date: 27-Jan-2020
  • Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media