Thank you for sharing your work with us. It's fascinating to learn that the design of physical environments may influence female participation in CS! I understand your study used questionnaires to explore female students' interests in taking CS courses. I am interested in your thoughts about other ways in which one might study the impact of physical environments in broadening female participation in CS. 

Your project is simple and smart and opens up a host of possibilities for thinking about the learning ecology for all of STEM. As a follow on to Anushree's question: whether you plan to see if the study holds true in a wider variety of settings, urban, versus rural, etc. Also, are there patterns or characteristics in the student's background that might be confounding to results (for instance effect of income, ethnic background, etc.). Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for sharing your work!  As a high school computer science teacher, I find your research results very thought provoking.  It seems part of the challenge is getting girls into the computer science classroom and then another part is making the classroom a place the girls feel they belong and want to be.   I noticed in the images of the two classrooms, computers were not prominent in either (I think there may have been a laptop station in the background).  Is there a reason you chose to not have computers a more central part of the classroom images?  Thanks!

Thanks for your question, Lisa! We opted to model the classroom on what the Intro CS classes looked like in the high schools we had visited and at our university, which is more of a lecture course. However, we also wanted students to know that computers were involved, so we the words "laptop storage" on the cabinet to indicate that computers were present. 

 Hi there - I was wondering what your thoughts are about the role of the instructor and near-peer mentoring in involving and retaining girls in CS.  I have vivid memories of being a middle schooler and going to the high school next door for programming classes.  Not only was the classroom the typical type that you describe, but having to huddle with older boys (who were supposed to be TA's)  around our shared Commodore 64 was incredibly awkward.  I often wonder if I would have chosen a different academic route had that initial experience been more supportive.  Thank you for sharing your video and the link to your paper, really interesting, timely and important work!

Hi Sapna,

I teach mathematics at an all-girls private high school and have seen the level of interest grow within our computer science program within the past four years.  I started teaching at my school at the same time as our technology and media arts teacher, who is also a female.  When she started teaching our school only had an introductory graphic design course that was offered to freshmen as an elective course. She currently teaches two levels of graphic design and AP Computer Science Principles and is trying to get AP Computer Science A approved for her students who want to continue taking computer science courses.  I believe that her role as a female technology teacher is increasing our students’ interest in computer science and her classroom environment is similar to the second environment you described in your video.  I also believe that her background in being an art major in college has helped her create a less stereotypical classroom environment.  I hope that our mostly female technology, mathematics, and science faculty encourage more of our students to go into STEM-related field. 

Allison