The incredible shrinking pipeline
Communications of the ACM
CS girls rock: sparking interest in computer science and debunking the stereotypes
SIGCSE '03 Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Discovering Statistics Using SPSS
Discovering Statistics Using SPSS
Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas
Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas
Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Once she makes it, she is there: gender differences in computer science study
Proceedings of the 11th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Making computing attractive for non-majors: a course design
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Storytelling alice motivates middle school girls to learn computer programming
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
ScriptEase: A generative/adaptive programming paradigm for game scripting
Science of Computer Programming
Using storytelling to motivate programming
Communications of the ACM - Creating a science of games
Interactive story authoring: A viable form of creative expression for the classroom
Computers & Education
Children learning computer science concepts via Alice game-programming
Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education
Making games in the classroom: Benefits and gender concerns
Computers & Education
Code club: bringing programming to UK primary schools through scratch
Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Mission critical: building community to engage young women in computer science (abstract only)
Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
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Enrollment in Computing Science university programs is at a dangerously low level. A major reason for this is the general lack of interest in Computing Science by females. In this paper, we discuss our experience with using a computer game construction environment as a vehicle to encourage female participation in Computing Science. Experiments with game construction in grade 10 English classes showed that females enjoyed this activity as much as males and were just as successful. In this paper, we argue that: a) computer game construction is a viable activity for teaching higher-order thinking skills that are essential for Science; b) computer game construction that involves scripting teaches valuable Computing Science abstraction skills; c) this activity is an enjoyable introduction to Computing Science; and d) outcome measures for this activity are not male-dominated in any of the three aspects (higher-order thinking, Computing Science abstraction skills, activity enjoyment). Therefore, we claim that this approach is a viable gender-neutral approach to teaching Computing Science in particular and Science in general that may increase female participation in the discipline.