GDSE/RES - Programming with a Purpose: An Experimental Investigation on the Role Narrative Plays in Supporting Girls' Understanding of Programming Concepts

GDSE/RES - 有目的的编程：关于叙事在支持女孩理解编程概念中的作用的实验调查

• 批准号: 0332862
• 负责人: Cornelia Brunner
• 金额: $ 46.6万
• 依托单位: Education Development Center
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-09-01 至 2005-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0332862&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: GDSE; RES; Programming; Purpose; Experimental

The Center for Children and Technology at the Education Development Center will conduct a two-year experimental research project to systematically investigate the power of narrative in enabling girls to learn key programming concepts and skills. The hypothesis is that when girls are given the opportunity to learn programming situated in a meaningful narrative context their understanding of core programming skills will be enhanced. The experiment consists of teaching an introductory programming curricular unit to a treatment and control group of ninth grade students attending computer application classes in a predominantly Latino urban high school, Union Hill High School in New Jersey.The basis of the curricular unit involves students using a research tool built on top of an object-oriented programming language, such as JAVA, which is easily customizable. The research tool will consist of a flexible drag and drop software environment that uses the metaphor of choreographing ice-skating routines to make the task of learning computer programming more familiar to girls. In the treatment group, the research tool will enable users to design ice-skating performances by combining and shaping various routine elements into an executable, cohesive program. In the control class, students will use the same research tool and assemble identical subroutines as the treatment class, but instead of a graphic interface that shows skaters dancing in a rink, the research tool will be customized to enable students to work with abstract shapes moving across the screen (as in a screen saver). Using pre-post surveys, clinical interviews, and transfer tasks, the study will investigate whether girls' understanding of core programming skills and concepts (i.e., sequential thinking, understanding parameters and variables, and the structure of code) are increased when exposed to programming tasks within a rich narrative context.According to research, programming is not intrinsically interesting to many girls. They are more likely to be attracted to learning skills situated in a meaningful context, and especially as a way to solve a genuine social, personal or environmental problem. With the advent of object-oriented programming languages (such as JAVA), it is possible to make programming more accessible to girls since object-oriented languages allow one to program by manipulating the relationships between objects in a narrative context rather than executing abstract, linear code.The broader aim of the study is to investigate whether girls can learn as much or better if a traditional programming curriculum is reverse-engineered to provide a meaningful context for the investigation of core programming skills and processes (i.e., reading, using, modifying, and implementing aspects of code) advocated by the Advanced Placement Computer Science curriculum and the Association for Computing Machinery. Findings from this study will help drive the future development and reform of computer science curricula for youth, particularly as Advanced Placement guidelines move toward the use of JAVA programming as the basis for introductory computer science at the high school level.

教育发展中心的儿童与技术中心将开展一项为期两年的实验研究项目，系统地研究叙事在使女孩学习关键编程概念和技能方面的力量。我们的假设是，当女孩有机会在有意义的叙事背景下学习编程时，她们对核心编程技能的理解将会得到增强。该实验包括向治疗组和对照组的九年级学生教授入门编程课程单元，这些学生在新泽西州联合山高中一所以拉丁裔为主的城市高中参加计算机应用课程。该课程单元的基础是学生使用研究工具建立在面向对象的编程语言（例如 JAVA）之上，可以轻松定制。该研究工具将由一个灵活的拖放软件环境组成，该环境使用编排滑冰动作的比喻，使女孩更熟悉学习计算机编程的任务。在治疗组中，研究工具将使用户能够通过将各种常规元素组合和塑造成可执行的、有凝聚力的计划来设计滑冰表演。在控制课中，学生将使用与处理课相同的研究工具并组装相同的子程序，但研究工具将被定制，而不是显示溜冰者在溜冰场跳舞的图形界面，使学生能够处理移动的抽象形状穿过屏幕（如在屏幕保护程序中）。该研究将通过事前调查、临床访谈和转移任务来调查女孩在接触编程时对核心编程技能和概念（即顺序思维、理解参数和变量以及代码结构）的理解是否有所增加丰富的叙事背景中的任务。根据研究，许多女孩对编程本质上并不感兴趣。 他们更有可能被在有意义的背景下学习技能所吸引，尤其是作为解决真正的社会、个人或环境问题的一种方式。随着面向对象编程语言（例如 JAVA）的出现，女孩可以更容易地进行编程，因为面向对象语言允许人们通过在叙述上下文中操纵对象之间的关系来编程，而不是执行抽象的、线性的。该研究的更广泛目标是调查如果对传统编程课程进行逆向工程，为调查核心编程技能和过程（即阅读、使用、修改）提供有意义的背景，女孩是否可以学得一样多或更好，以及代码的实现方面）由计算机科学先修课程和计算机协会倡导。这项研究的结果将有助于推动青少年计算机科学课程的未来发展和改革，特别是在大学先修课程指南转向使用 JAVA 编程作为高中计算机科学入门基础的基础上。