Investigating the Effect of Binary Gender Preferences on Computational Thinking Skills

Abstract

The Computer Science industry suffers from a vivid gender gap. To understand this gap, Computational Thinking skills in Computer Science education are analyzed by binary gender roles using block-based programming languages such as Scratch since they are intuitive for beginners. Platforms such as Dr. Scratch, aid learners in improving their coding skills by earning a Computational Thinking score while supporting effective assessments of students' projects and fostering basic computer programming. Although previous studies have examined gender differences using Scratch programs, few have analyzed the Scratch project type's impact on the evaluation process when comparing genders. Herein, the influence of project type is analyzed using instances of 124 (62 male, 62 female) projects on the Scratch website. Initially, projects were categorized based on the user's gender and project type. Hypothetical testing of each case shows that the scoring system has a bias based on the project type. As gender differences appear by project type, the project type may significantly affect the gender gap in Computational Thinking scores. This study demonstrates the importance of incorporating the project type's effect into the Scratch projects' evaluation process when assessing gender differences.

Keywords

• computational thinking
• gender
• K-12
• Scratch