The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2002: §343c Home Papers/Indices prev (§343b) Next (§343d)

Presentation Women and Minorities in Computing

Recommended Citation: Crews, T, J Butterfield, and R Blankenship. Right From the Start: Leveling (then Raising) the Playing Field. In The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2002, v 19 (San Antonio): §343c. ISSN: 1542-7382.

Right From the Start: Leveling (then Raising) the Playing Field

Handout

Thad Crews    [a1] [a2]
Department of Management and Information Systems
Western Kentucky University    [u1] [u2]
Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA    [c1] [c2]

Jeff Butterfield    [a1] [a2]
Department of Management and Information Systems
Western Kentucky University    [u1] [u2]
Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA    [c1] [c2]

Ray Blankenship    [a1] [a2]
Department of Management and Information Systems
Western Kentucky University    [u1] [u2]
Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA    [c1] [c2]

This paper covers an approach to teaching and learning programming that emphasizes logic and design while minimizing the distraction from hardware. This approach provides a gender-level playing field by removing many of the known problems associated with an introductory programming course. This paper also presents the Visual learning tool, which utilizes flowcharts to emphasize patterns of logic and design, abstracts out the details of different hardware, and supports a broad range of programming and problem solving activities. Visual is able to execute flowcharts, providing students with the immediate feedback that is typically only available with traditional high-level programming languages. We report the results of an empirical study that demonstrates and increase in performance for both female and male students, while also reducing the differences between males and females. This paper concludes with a discussion of implications and future directions of this research effort.

Keywords: gender, information technology, introductory computer programming

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