TY - GEN
T1 - Exploring the appeal of socially relevant computing
T2 - 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2011
AU - Rader, Cyndi
AU - Hakkarinen, Doug
AU - Moskal, Barbara M.
AU - Hellman, Keith
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Prior research indicates that today's students, especially women, are attracted to careers in which they recognize the direct benefit of the field for serving societal needs. Traditional college level computer science courses rarely illustrate the potential benefits of computer science to the broader community. This paper describes a curricula development effort designed to embed humanitarian projects into undergraduate computer science courses. The impact of this program was measured through student self-report instruments. Through this investigation, it was found that students generally preferred projects that they perceived as "fun" over the projects that were social in nature. This may, in part, be due to the fact that it was difficult to reduce socially relevant problems to a level that beginning students could easily comprehend. This made it difficult to capitalize on the appeal of socially relevant problems in the early computer science courses.
AB - Prior research indicates that today's students, especially women, are attracted to careers in which they recognize the direct benefit of the field for serving societal needs. Traditional college level computer science courses rarely illustrate the potential benefits of computer science to the broader community. This paper describes a curricula development effort designed to embed humanitarian projects into undergraduate computer science courses. The impact of this program was measured through student self-report instruments. Through this investigation, it was found that students generally preferred projects that they perceived as "fun" over the projects that were social in nature. This may, in part, be due to the fact that it was difficult to reduce socially relevant problems to a level that beginning students could easily comprehend. This made it difficult to capitalize on the appeal of socially relevant problems in the early computer science courses.
KW - Broadening participation
KW - Computer science education
KW - Gender
KW - Socially relevant computing
KW - Student projects
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79954438158&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/1953163.1953288
DO - 10.1145/1953163.1953288
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:79954438158
SN - 9781450305006
T3 - SIGCSE'11 - Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
SP - 423
EP - 428
BT - SIGCSE'11 - Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
Y2 - 9 March 2011 through 12 March 2011
ER -