Employing narratives to trigger interest in computational activities with inner-city girls

There has been a well-documented and persistent drop in the number of women in computer science and engineering courses [1]. Young peoples' decisions about participation often start early and have been linked to particular experiences [2]. For some young people, these experiences are less than encouraging. In the US, high school computer science courses are overwhelmingly male dominated [3]. Schools serving minority students and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds often struggle to even offer such classes [4]. Even when opportunities exist, many girls and underrepresented populations face barriers such as negative stereotypes and dearth of role models and community [5]. The Digital Youth Divas program was created to address these issues through intentional design. The program is developed to trigger situational interest [6] in girls through a combination of community, project-based instruction, on- and offline learning spaces, and narrative stories. Triggered situational interest is critical as an opening to move on to subsequent phases that are more independent of environmental factors. Understanding potential effective triggers for girls, minorities, and youth from lower socioeconomic backgrounds is critical to engaging such populations in STEM learning. (1) Community: Middle school girls interested in fashion and design are recruited, especially from areas that have traditionally been underserved. Adult mentors who are not engineers, but share cultural connections with the girls and have gone through curriculum and pedagogical training, attend to specific practices of encouraging, helping to troubleshoot, and developing community. (2) Project-based instruction: The program combines principles of fashion, design, and dance with the power and possibilities of electronic circuits and programming to develop interactive e-fashion projects and virtual programmed choreographies. Scaffolded challenges work through stages of design and computational thinking, including paper prototyping, implementation, feedback, and revision. (3) Integrated on and offline learning spaces: Girls work through projects in a shared physical space using supplied materials. An online system, iRemix, is the mechanism for independent work and leveling up. (4) Interactive narrative stories: Narratives can provide context that helps relate abstract concepts to real-world issues [7], increase motivation and positively contribute to girls' science identity [8], and provide focus for design by communicating tasks, specifically when readers can identify with the stories [9]. Compelling stories conveyed in text and multimedia (video, audio, images) is employed to engage middle school girls in activities involving computational thinking. The stories center on a group of middle school girls involved in the Digital Youth Divas program, and combines aspects of contemporary young adult fiction (mystery, social and emotional issues) with content, topics, and project work from the e-textiles and programming curricula. The interactive narratives unfold through the iRemix platform: girls launch narratives and at intervals are prompted to engage in project-based work. The girls solve challenges by submitting work online, and receive and respond to messages from characters. Our early exploratory research suggested that narratives prompted discussions of identity, and contributed to participant interest in the program content and motivation to engage in project work.