I devised a small, non-academic, questionnaire about the video, which was given out at the end of a Stagecoach performing arts club session.  The group consisted of 38 girls, aged between 9 and 13 (with an average of 10.8). 11 of these girls had parents who worked in a scientific job. The group was asked about their perceptions of science careers before and after watching the video. The results are surprising but also very insightful into the mindset of this age group. Before I go on to present these results, I want to emphasize that the results of this study are not indicative of every child in Europe but instead suggest that these trends and results are something we need to explore further.

Before Viewing

• 13 out of 38 girls stated that they enjoy science lessons at school.
• 11 out of 38 girls stated that they want a career in science. Only 2 of these girls had parents in scientific occupations.

After Viewing

• 30 out of 38 girls had positive comments about the video.
• 25 out of 38 girls said that the video made them motivated to look into science as a career. This is an increase of 14 girls: from 29% to 66%! 

Interestingly, the girls were generally positive about the video: it’s difficult to argue with the numbers.

25 out of 38 girls said that the video made them motivated to look into science as a career. This is an increase of 14 girls: from 29% to 66%!

The girls were free to write down their comments. The next sections will expand upon the numbers given above.

Feelings about Science

Before watching the clip, participants were asked to state if they were interested in having a career in science and, if so, what they wanted to do. If they weren’t interested, they were asked to give their reasons.

• Participants who were interested in science careers said that they wanted to be doctors, nurses, a medical engineer, and a science TV presenter, and that they wanted to find a cure for cancer, find cures to illnesses, or, in one case, have a career using Bunsen burners (!).  A wide range of careers was mentioned.
• Participants who were not interested in science careers said it was because “it was boring”, “it was for nerds”, “I like drawing”, “I am scared of explosions”, and “I don’t want to dissect frogs”. The ‘boring’ reason was the most common reason for not wanting a career in science.

Feelings about the Video

After watching the clip, participants gave feedback as to how they felt about the video.

• Participants who gave positive comments wrote comments such as: “I thought it was cool”, “it was lively”, “I learnt a lot”, “I enjoyed the music”, “it was artistic”, “it was girly”, “it made science for me”, and “it appealed to me”. The phrases for this signified that the girls felt it was important that the video appealed to them and felt they could relate to it. They enjoyed the music and thought the clip was girly and lively, and this drew them in and kept their interest.
• Participants who gave negative comments wrote comments such as: “It is not real science, what does make up have to do with science?” , “its [sic] too girly for me” , “there was maths in the video and I find maths difficult”, and “I don’t want a science career”. The negative comments were just as interesting as these reinforced that they did not think that make-up was part of science. I felt that this video may not have reached these participants in the same way as the more positive participants. Participants also mentioned that they did not think it was real science, and it would be interesting to understand their perceptions and experiences of science.

Participants were also asked if the video made them want to research further into science careers. Again there were positive and negative comments:

• Participants who gave positive comments: “I didn’t realise it was for me”, “It looked like they had fun doing the science”, “It was made for my age group”, “We like experimenting with make-up and that’s how it got my attention”, “I am going to show it to my friends”, “It gave me a different perspective to science”, “Something which is more for my age group”, “I liked the video because it had make up in it and I like trying make up”, “It makes science better”, “It made me want to go on the website after to see what else there is to do in science other than medicine”, “I want to be a make-up artist but that is difficult to get into so chemistry looks like it might be interesting”, “I know that making beauty products they need to make sure that they don’t harm people with the wrong chemicals”, “I like the idea of using science to help people feel nice about themselves”, and “It has made me interested in learning about how make up is made using my science skills”. These comments were interesting, the girls did not hold back!
• Participants who gave negative comments said the following: “I enjoyed the video but I was more interested in the other videos [on the EU site]. But I wouldn’t find the other ones without the make up one”, “Because it is wrong, make up isn’t scientific”, “It is tested on animals”, “I find maths hard and maths was in the video”, “I don’t see the point of it”, “I think its helped made me think about other options in science”, “I like the hot man”, and “I don’t want to have a science career”.

Other Comments

Participants were asked to provide other comments about the video. They said:

• I enjoyed watching video! My mum said we can go on the website at home.
• I want to learn how lipstick is made. I didn’t know it was made with science skills.
• We are going on the main website after stage coach.
• I liked learning about a different side to science than what we do at school.
• I like biology so my mum said we could see what other things they have.
• I am going to look at the website when I go home to see more videos.
• I am deciding whether to do triple science so it was good to learn more about it.

The girls wrote about visiting the EU website afterwards, which has other videos about women in scientific careers.

Conclusions

As a community we need to accept that what appeals to us may not appeal to young teenage girls. If this video appealed to ‘grownups’ it would not be doing its job.

The results of this informal study are interesting: they oppose the majority of the views of the ‘grownups’! From a kid’s point of view, it seems like the video acted as a bridge for further research. It was important that they could identify with the video, and from the comments it would appear that they did.

This video is not going to change the world: it’s one of many factors that could influence career decision making. However, this study demonstrates that it has enthused a significant number of girls into thinking about science careers in a positive way. While the context of the participants (from a local theatre group) may affect these results, one message is clear: as a community we need to accept that what appeals to us may not appeal to young teenage girls. If this video appealed to ‘grownups’ it would not be doing its job.

The University of Liverpool, rated 9th, has 21% female students, while Bristol and York rate higher in the league tables but at the bottom when it comes to gender.

What can universities do?

It is obvious that their courses are great, but it’s also apparent
that they do not seem to be attracting a diverse range of genders.
Here are some ways that universities can attract more female students:

1. Target your outreach to Maths A-level students: there are more
girls there to choose from.

2. Be encouraging in the interview and prospectuses by saying that
programming is NOT a pre-requisite to studying computer science.

3. Provide lots of information about computer science societies and
women’s groups you may have.

4. Have a good prospectus and an easy-to-navigate website.

For a more detailed discussion, take a look at my publications or email reenapau@gmail.com for a chat.

In the next few days keep an eye out as I will be doing a comparison with all the universities in the league tables. keep your eyes peeled for where your university ranks!

Addition (added 18th July) Raw data for the universities in the top ten of league tables can be found by clicking here.

Sources:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2012/may/22/university-guide-computer-sciences-it

2.http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/

For the past nine months, I have been working on a wonderful project at Swansea University called Technocamps. The project aims to encourage 11-19 year olds to study computing and technology.

There are various different hubs around Wales and they all hold
different workshops based on their expertise within their computer science
departments. Swansea held workshops on Programming and will be holding
workshops on digital electronics. My role was to develop the workshops and
help deliver them. It was very rewarding to see the workshops I made inspire
young people.

However, I missed independence and my life in Southampton so I have returned
to start new exciting challenging adventures. I have a couple small projects lined up with Southampton University and with the <GoTo> foundation

I am keen to get involved in new projects to do with enhancing the computer
science experience for all age groups and genders so please get in touch if
you would like a hand with anything or if you would like to have a chat about
outreach in computer science. I am currently consulting on projects that enhance the computer science experience for all age groups and genders. Please get in touch if you would like to have a conversation about how we can drive outreach in computer science. My PhD investigated how to get more girls into computer science and I have held successful outreach and public engagement events to also help this cause. I am looking to help organisations improve their marketing and outreach activities, and to assist with their overall image when reaching out to female students.

I have experience in:
* Teaching complex computer science concepts to young people.
* Girls and Technology
* Diversity in STEM
* Diversity in Higher Education
* The student experience
* Survey design
* Interview Design

Do get in touch if you would like to discuss these points further.

Then FEAR. Who is going to teach this? A high majority of our future computer science teachers do not come from a computing background, let alone an ICT background.  According to the general teaching council of the 28,000 who became teachers in 2010, only THREE had a computing related degree.

Before I started work on the Technocamps project I did my PhD looking at why there aren’t enough women in computing and then did my postdoc looking at something similar. I published papers, researched and was seen as some sort of expert in the area of getting kids into computing. However, I had only been seeing things from one aspect. I did not realize the amount of support and encouragement that schools will need to teach a computer science curriculum. Schools which I had observed, have issues with the current ICT Curriculum.

In order for this reform to work we need to upskill teachers, not a one day training course or a light evening session, they need consistent support. It takes computer science graduates three years to be experts in the subject computer science, teachers need a similar type of training. We need to remember that computing is not as easy as ICT and therefore need to make sure we do not put young people of by having unskilled teachers.

When computers were first introduced into secondary schools, teachers did not know what to do with them and a lot of money was pumped into teacher training and equipment. This training was a session on computers, however this was not enough to increase their confidence in teaching computers. Young people know more about computers than teachers and are able to tell if the teacher is not confident in teaching a subject, which is why its important the right training and support is given.

I am really glad that we are looking up and taking an interest in IT education, however I hope it isn’t a one off speech and I hope that thought has been given about the consequences in terms of the quality of education out young people receive.

[updated 11th January 2013, 16:07 - minor grammar issues!]

Scratch

Scratch is aimed at 9-11 year old students, although we also use it for 12-14 year olds. Scratch is a fun program to teach. Its drag and drop and does not expose the user to errors. It does not take much to get things happening. E.g. getting a cat to move forward 10 steps is a case of using two drag and drop boxes and pressing start. This is great for younger pupils who are impatient and looking for results straight away. It is free to download and does not take too long to learn. For my experiences on teaching scratch click here. 

Alice

Alice is very different to Scratch, in that the application deals with concepts such as objects, methods and properties and relies on the user being able to think ‘independently’. It is a drag and drop program, so it’s a good follow on from Scratch. The approach we have used to teach Alice is by getting participants to go through the Alice tutorials before getting them to make their own 3D animation. This is an excellent way of getting participants to get to grips with its concepts and the vocabulary involved in object-orientated design. It is satisfying when 15 year olds are leaving the room discussing objects and methods! Again this is free to download and it helps with concepts. For my experience on teaching Alice, click here. 

Green foot

Greenfoot teaches object orientated design using Java. It is recommended that this is taught to students who have had prior programming experience and/or doing A-level / A/S Level computing. They allow users to create ‘actors’ which are in ‘worlds’ to make games, animations and simulations. Its interactive and interaction tools are built into the Greenfoot environment. Unlike the two above, this introduces students to common syntax errors and is a lot more real than the other two.

When I say geek do I mean boy or girl? When I say geek in this context, I mean either girls or boys who love computers. There are many definitions of the word, but for this post, this is what I will mean!

Lego have currently created a range of Lego products specifically aimed at girls. The range is called ‘Friends’. It includes being able to make things like beauty salons or girly convertibles. This is all very lovely, but I did not see the need to create a ‘special’ range. What worries me is that by doing this, it reinforces that their other Lego products is aimed at boys only. It reinforces that things like Star Trek is for boys only. By doing this, Lego has turned itself into a boys only product.

If the girly Lego acts as a bridge to getting children into creative toys such as Lego and play-doh and then those skills are transferred onto other things like Engineering or drawing its fabulous, however I really don’t want girls to think they have to restrict themselves to Lego girl products only. Making something pink doesn’t make it for girls! These are some initial thoughts that I hope to be expanding on in the next few days, but I kind of just needed to get this online! Feel free to give me an opinion!

Alice is very different to Scratch, in that the application deals with concepts such as objects, methods and properties and relies on the user being able to think ‘independently’. It is a drag and drop program, so it’s a good follow on from Scratch.

Tutorials.

The approach we have used to teach Alice is by getting participants to go through the Alice tutorials before getting them to make their own 3D animation. This is an excellent way of getting participants to get to grips with its concepts and the vocabulary involved in object-orientated design. It is satisfying when 15 year olds are leaving the room discussing objects and methods!

Although this method is effective, is it is not popular with a number of participants. A number of participants have said that this is the worst part of the workshop, where as others said it was the best part of the workshop.   As a workshop developer I am in a dilemma about how to deal with this predicament. Do we keep going with the tutorials or take another approach?

Trying

After participants have gone through tutorials, they are asked to look at the animations and make their own games. This can be problematic as often they have gone through the tutorials but not paid too much attention to what was actually being taught in them. Or they have realized to do the animation they actually want to do, is actually going to take a long time, which means they get put off and start talking about how difficult Alice is to use.  In other words, they give up far too easily!

Reflection.

Each tutorial takes about 15minutes to go through depending on the ability of the class and their patience with Alice.

Another issue is the program itself, participants have found it slow and therefore frustrating to use. Young people are not the most patient of people!

Overall, Alice gets across the main points to those who want to take the time to learn it and it allows space for creativity. However, we need to find a better way of getting the tool across. Using Alice is OK for prolonged lessons e.g. for 10 lessons or so, which means they can explore at their own pace, but for a one day workshop, we need to think of different ways of teaching it. Any thoughts, hints and advice would be much appreciated!

Since taking on my new role at Technocamps, I have found myself in a classroom environment teaching pupils foundation concepts in programming. My primary role (as well as delivering workshops) is to decide upon content and making sure that they are at the right level for the group. But also making sure the content is engaging for young people so they go away thinking they want to learn more (this is actually quite difficult!).

The first three workshop modules that have been developed are based upon programming concepts. We have used Scratch, Alice and Greenfoot to get these concepts across. The aim of these sessions is to emphasise the importance of clear instruction giving and sequencing. The next sections will describe my experiences of using these tools.

Scratch is aimed at 9-11 year old students, although we also use it for 12-14 year olds.

Scratch is a fun program to teach. Its drag and drop and does not expose the user to errors. It does not take much to get things happening. E.g. getting a cat to move forward 10 steps is a case of using two drag and drop boxes and pressing start. This is great for younger pupils who are impatient and looking for results straight away.

However, I have found that there were issues in using Scratch. Getting pupils to understand the concept of ‘control’ was tricky. A majority thought that dragging a box over that said move 10 steps would be enough to move the box. It took a while for them to understand that in order to move something you have to give it a clearer instruction. Interestingly, once they got this concept it was much easier to grasp concepts like ‘forever’ or ‘if then’. Sequencing was a lot easier.

Scratch uses co-ordinates for some instructions e.g. glide to x:-13 Y:-102 to get an object to guide to a particular area, however a majority of year 7s had not done x and y co-ordinates so they did not understand this aspect. So for some pupils the ‘go to’ instruction was more appropriate.

A difficult aspect of teaching anything to this age group is the unwillingness to try themselves, ask their friends for help or to experiment. Even after constant encouragement and emphasis on the fact that they will not break Scratch it was still tricky to get these things across. I do understand that this group are not used to learning independently.

As someone who is not trained as a teacher, my instinct to help a student is to take the mouse from them and do it for them. However, I have since learnt that this is the wrong way! I now try to make sure that the pupils are always the ones who are ‘driving’ the computer and to make sure that they are answering their own questions (this can be difficult! Especially just before lunchtime!)

Overall teaching Scratch is a pleasure as once the pupils gain confidence with the interface, get used to experimenting and are happy with how it works, the results we get are amazing. Pupils who come in with little understanding about sequencing are leaving talking about the ‘if’ loop or how making games is not as easy as they once thought. I don’t think teaching this module requires a huge amount of technical knowledge, but rather patience with pupils to help them get the results they ‘want’. Check out this youtube link for examples of what you can do with Scratch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxDw-t3XWd0

Tune in for the next installment where I will put the world to rights about teaching Alice!

• Computer Systems
• Computer Hardware
• Software
• Data Representation
• Databases
• Networks
• Programming

The course does provide a very thorough and real foundation of what computing is in terms of fundamentals. The examiner said that the aim of the course was to go beyond Scratch and give a foundation to certain aspects of computing. These key fundamentals such as algorithms and computer systems are taught along side programming.

Something which was interesting was the ‘controlled assessment’ part of the course. Controlled assessment is basically coursework but done within the lesson. The advantages of this is that teachers and examiners know that cheating has not taken place. Its very locked down so students cannot use google or any resources that ‘real’ comp scis would have in industry or research. However, I feel this could be detrimental to the GCSE and could put off students from taking it further, especially girls.

Students who can take computing assignments home and do it in the ‘safety’ of the own environment are more likely to explore and feel comfortable to be creative as they will have access to resources.

Girls suffer from computer anxiety – which means they find it intimidating using the computer in front of others as they feel they will be laughed at for making a mistake. Making them do programming in front of people will put them off as this is exactly the issue with computer A-level. This was an issue amongst the teachers also.

By enforcing that students first experience of programming is alone, it reinforces the geek stereotype of working alone.

The type of controlled activities are things like making a calculator or hangman.

What can we do to help? 

Teachers need support to teach this course, without it, it won’t be offered in schools.

There is a lack of resources in terms of books and text books for the course. It would be great if we could contribute resources on different areas of assessment from our own lectures and courses.

I personally felt that the most worrying aspect of the course was the lack of the big picture. There needs to be more of a real world emphasis, things like HCI and interdisciplinary aspects are not covered and its these things that can help contribute to young people being turned on by computing rather than being turned off. Don’t get me wrong, every computer scientist needs to know the fundamentals but they need to know how the fundamentals can contribute to this wonderful world we live in.

Almost everyday for the last five years, I have been reading articles, press releases and have attended discussions on the skills shortage in the IT industry. Today is no different. Its the same arguments, same people and the same phrases. Don’t get me wrong, I am REALLY pleased that we are seeing these discussions take place, but I really would love for us not to have to worry about this. My PhD thesis investigated why girls did not enter into computing courses or careers as well as also looking at why people in general were put off by its prospect and had the following results:

I look forward to hearing your comments. Feel free to get in touch. xxx