NSF Broadening Participation in Computing Program
Grant #0634629
Aug 2008 Annual Report
Project “Georgia Computes!”
MAJOR RESULTS
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Our goal for “Georgia Computes!” was to increase the number of CS AP teachers
by 50% over the three years of our NSF BPC grant. Now in year two of the
project, the number of CS AP teachers in Georgia had increased by 78%. Georgia
has a higher percentage of high schools teaching CS AP than any state in the
Southeast (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Percentage of High Schools Teaching CS AP in Georgia and Neighboring States
Because of the funding for teacher travel and lodging, we have been able to reach
into the rural counties of Georgia, and are starting to have impact in getting more
rural test takers around the state.
Figure 2: Changes in AP test-taking, 2005 to 2007
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We continue to conduct pre- and post-workshop surveys at our Girl Scout and
YWCA events. We recently conducted an analysis comparing the pre- and postsurvey results for all the workshops. We found a surprising number of
statistically significant differences (Figure 3). These results have been submitted
to the ACM SIGCSE 2009 conference.
Figure 3: Significance of change on Girl Scout pre-/post-workshop surveys
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We are having impact on changing curriculum throughout the state. Half of all
attendees adopt some form of the new curricular approaches that we are
presenting to them. The reach of these adoptions is described in Figure 4. As
Lijun Ni and Tom McKlin are finding with their interviews and surveys of
teachers, the actual adoption rate is higher and harder to track. For example,
Albany State University (largest HBCU in the state of Georgia) does not appear
selected in Figure 4 because none of the attendees adopted any new curricula.
However, the attendees convinced other faculty to change, and now Albany State
has modified their courses using material from our workshops.
Figure 4: University System of Georgia schools adopting new curricular approaches after attending our
workshop
Student Results
 PhD student Michael Hewner conducted an autobiography study of seniors at
Georgia Tech. Since Georgia Tech has an innovative undergraduate curriculum
with multiple CS1’s, the question is, “What is the impact on attitudes about
computing at the end of the undergraduate curriculum of the required CS1 aimed
at the students’ major?” The answer was, “Not much.” For the most part, students’
attitudes about computing upon entering Georgia Tech was much the same as
attitudes upon leaving Georgia Tech, despite required CS courses. While we do
have students discover computing and change to a computing major from these
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courses, the percentage is small. The results make all the more important K-12
computing. Mike’s results will be published in the proceedings of the
International Computing Education Research workshop 2008.
PhD student Lijun Ni conducted two studies of teachers attending “Georgia
Computes!” workshops. The first used survey responses as inputs to a logical
regression where the outcome variable was whether the teacher actually adopted
or not. The result was that the most significant factor influencing adoption was
teacher excitement – that was more significant that teacher belief that the
approach would help students, or that there was research support for the approach.
The most significant barrier to adoption was social, e.g., where adoption decisions
had to be made by committee, or required agreement of peer teachers. These
results have been submitted to the SIGCSE 2009 conference.
Lijun Ni and Tom McKlin conducted a series of interviews with both adopting
and non-adopting teachers, to identify the questions and concerns that influence
the decision. The result is an important list of concerns for teacher workshop
developers to consider when aiming to provide the resources and arguments
needed to support adoption of curriculum reform. These results have also been
submitted to the SIGCSE 2009 conference.
PhD Student Betsy diSalvo conducted an analysis of over 1000 subjects to
explore the correlation between playing video games and having interest in CS.
While she found significant (though small) correlation (Figure 5), she also points
out that African-American and Hispanic males play console video games more
than other racial/gender groups, yet are a very small percentage of computing
majors. Her study helps to identify what factors are actually influencing interest
in CS. These results have also been submitted to the SIGCSE 2009 conference.
Figure 5: Results of ANOVA , Gaming Frequency by CS Interest
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PhD Student Jill Dimond asked Girl Scouts at a summer camp to develop chat
tools (including a small programming component) for the XO laptop, to enable
children in the developing world to chat electronically. Her 17 subjects reported a
dramatic change in attitudes about computing. The context of helping children in
the developing world seemed to draw the students in, and the activity engaged the
students. Her results are being developed for a CHI 2009 paper.