A number of studies have been performed in an attempt to identify factors that inhibit high school girls from pursuing computer science, as well as undergraduate women from completing the major and continuing on to graduate school. One hypothesis is that girls are not attracted to computer science for several reasons including: misconceptions about the field itself, misconceptions about working styles of people successful in the field, lack of desirable role models, lack of female colleagues, and lack of confidence in the abilities perceived necessary for success in computer science. While no definite conclusions have been reached, two primary factors noted by the ACM Committee on the Status of Women for retention of women in computing are diminished self-esteem and lack of mentoring and role models.
Our program is aimed at giving high school girls the tools necessary to have confidence about their technical abilities and be comfortable in computer science, as well as providing them with an independent project experience with female university faculty mentors in computer science. The summer program is designed for 20 high school students to participate in an 8-week, half-day summer program. To set the stage for them to experience the excitement of creating applications that they are using in their own internet surfing, the program focuses on both static and interactive web programming, and animation and GUI programming with Java. The program is team taught by the three co-PIs with a female math and computer science high school teacher, female graduate student teaching assistant, and a group of female undergraduate computer science majors. The Girls' POWER (Programming Of the WEb Rocks!) summer program includes lectures, lab sessions, and most significantly individual and group projects designed to be exciting, demanding, and directed with considerable built-in support to ensure a successful, positive experience for the high school girls. The program includes talks by local research/industry female computer scientists, organized social activities, and career and education awareness sessions.
The proposed project has a number of aspects that are innovative. We have created a strong team of three senior female computer science professors who are noted for both their research and teaching excellence. The program leverages off of the technical strengths, excitement, and successes of the web for achieving the goals of the program. High school girls are given the opportunity to create interesting and useful web-based projects in a collaborative environment with computer science undergraduates and university faculty. The program is a comprehensive one that targets females in the critical high school years, and focuses on the hypothesized barriers to attracting and retaining women at these stages.
The anticipated regional outcomes of this project include an increase in the number of local high school women taking the Advanced Placement exam in computer science, an increase in the number of high school women at the participating schools majoring in computer science in college, and an established communication between numerous female computer scientists at all levels in this local geographic region. Beyond the Delaware Valley, the results of the evaluation of this experimental project should help to advance the understanding of the kinds of activities that actually aid in attracting and retaining women, as opposed to the negative aspects that inhibit them from the field.
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