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Girls, Games, and Getting Interested in Technology
PROCEEDINGS

, Stanford University, United States

Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA ISBN 978-1-880094-64-8 Publisher: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), Waynesville, NC USA

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Abstract

When studying interest in technology it is important to measure not only interest in approaching a new experience, but also in choosing to continue with it. In a summer-school design experiment, we taught middle-school students to program games. We explored factors that contributed to interest in continuing with the programming activity. While much prior research has focused on gender, we found that the breadth of experiences children had with technology, not gender, predicted whether or not students were interested in continuing. Furthermore, continuing interest correlated with students' satisfaction with the final project, suggesting a relationship between project satisfaction and interest development. These findings suggest that students with less experience respond positively to the opportunity to work on building technological fluency in a formal educational environment, such as school.

Citation

Forssell, K. (2008). Girls, Games, and Getting Interested in Technology. In K. McFerrin, R. Weber, R. Carlsen & D. Willis (Eds.), Proceedings of SITE 2008--Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 991-996). Las Vegas, Nevada, USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved August 10, 2024 from .

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