Type: Empirical,Other

Purpose: The authors created a program for middle school girls in order to address the issue of underrepresentation of women in CS. The program aimed to change the attitudes of these students' toward CS and to have them consider CS as a potential career. The name of the program was Gr8 Designs for Gr8 Girls. It was piloted in 2007 and fully ran in 2008 with 85 eighth grade girls and 6 teachers in 21 middle schools. The program was free and focused on design and creativity.

Findings: The program had a positive impact, which was also confirmed at 3 months. "... t-tests confirmed that the increase in ratings for CS was significantly different from that of the other careers for both the interest and pursuit questions (p < 0.001 in both cases)" (p. 223).

Recommendations: The authors recommend these suggestions for those who would like to consider a similar program: Involve the teachers, run the program during the regular school day, use volunteers, explore alternative ways to include the HCI session, caution speakers about the girls' technical comprehension.