Gender differences in kindergarteners’ robotics and programming achievement

Abstract

Early childhood is a critical period for introducing girls to traditionally masculine fields of science and technology before more extreme gender stereotypes surface in later years. This study looks at the TangibleK Robotics Program in order to determine whether kindergarten boys and girls were equally successful in a series of building and programming tasks. The TangibleK Program consisted of a six lesson robotics and programming curriculum that was implemented in three different kindergarten classrooms (N = 53 students). Although previous research has found that males outperform females in robotics and programming related fields, it was hypothesized that the young age of participants and their limited cultural indoctrination regarding gender stereotypes would allow boys and girls to have equal success in this program. Although boys had a higher mean score than girls on more than half of the tasks, very few of these differences were statistically significant. Boys scored significantly higher than girls only in two areas: properly attaching robotic materials, and programming using Ifs. Overall, both boys and girls were able to successfully complete the program.

Systematic Review of Research Trends in Robotics Education for Young Children

“…For this reason, we used the curricula as sources of definitions of robotics education. For example, Sullivan and Bers implemented an eight-week robotics curriculum for pre-K to 2nd graders in their research to examine the learning outcomes of the robotics program [35]. The curriculum established core ideas for each activity as a kind of target goal (e.g., the concept of robots, different types of sensors and actors, commands for programming, and programming concepts such as repeated loops and conditional branches).…”

“…Surprisingly, there is only one study concerned with different aspects of learners [35]. Sullivan and Bers were concerned with the gender differences in kindergarten children's robotics learning [35].…”

Undergraduate Students' Experiences in Programming: Difficulties and Obstacles

“…Recently, there has been a trend related to the discovery of the predictors of programming skills and the cause of the failure in programming courses (Ferrer-Mico, Fernandez & Sanchez, 2012;Hwang et al, 2012;Shaw, 2012;Lau & Yuen, 2011;Lau & Yuen, 2009;Sivasakthi & Rajendran, 2011;Hawi, 2010;Jegede, 2009). Studies on this issue show that programming success is affected by factors such as gender (Yurdugül & Aşkar, 2013;Sullivan & Bers, 2012;Lau & Yuen, 2011), programming experience (Bergersen & Gustafsson, 2011;Lau & Yuen, 2011;Jegede, 2009), academic achievement and mathematic performance (Lau & Yuen, 2009;Ambrosio et al, 2011), self-efficacy (Jegede, 2009;Altun & Mazman, 2012) and problem solving skills (Yurdugül & Aşkar, 2013;Fessakis, Gouli & Mavroudi, 2013). Therefore, investigation of factors affecting success in programming courses can increase in student success in these courses which is mandatory and is mostly perceived as difficult.…”

The Relations of Metacognitive Awareness, Multiple Intelligences and Gender with Undergraduates' Perceived Motivation in Using Multimedia

“…These skills are not only important to pursuing students but also to programmers. Thus, aspiring to be programmers requires students to develop and enhance their problem-solving skills at the early stage of learning programming, which could help them deal with many challenging real-life problems [25].…”

“…In addition to metacognitive awareness, several studies have shown that, in general, male students tend to perform relatively better than female students [3] [25]. Thus, it is not surprising to see greater representation in CS and IT programs of the former compared to that of the latter.…”