Type: Empirical

Purpose: The authors examined middle school girls writing syntactically based code using a tool known as a Curiosity Grid. They also designed objects on a 3-d world. Student artifacts were examined as well as feedback from a one-week residential summer camp.

Findings: Based on ten challenges given to the 16 girls in the camp, all girls completed at least ten and several girls completed twelve. Based on pre/post camp survey responses, post camp surveys were significantly different in that students were more satisfied with the tools they used and showed greater interest in the field of computer science, however, the results were mixed. Students still did not feel confident in their understanding of computer science concepts, so that they did not feel that they could use CS to solve other problems.

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