Communications of the ACM
Computing Science Rewriting the Program to Get Girls in the Game
University of Alberta researchers have found that high school girls become more interested in computer science if video game creation is incorporated into the lesson plans.
The researchers conducted a study to determine if girls would have as much interest in developing video games as boys. "We thought we should have female students create games and see if they are just as excited about making games as male students and see whether it's an attractor to computing science that is independent of gender," says Alberta professor Duane Szafron.
The study found that female students enjoyed developing games just as much as males, and preferred game design to other activities such as creative writing. "In terms of the quality of the games developed and the abstraction skills that the students learned, which could translate to knowledge of competing science--and in terms of the amount of fun that they had--there was no difference between the two groups," Szafron says.
From University of Alberta
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