Publication

Proceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education

Description

In order to affect career decisions, it is important to reach youth at early ages. While some have focused on using mentors in order to successfully teach mentees, few have focused on the benefits to the mentors themselves. To our knowledge, no other research has been conducted on the effect that serving as a near-peer mentor has on increasing the mentors' interest, self-efficacy, value-beliefs, and skills in computer science. Our paid mentorships provided youth two weeks of participation in computer science camps using App Inventor. The mentors in our pilot study increased self-efficacy and interest after the mentoring activity, on average. This all-female mentoring experience provided opportunities to transcend barriers such as negative stereotyping and lack of role models. We feel that being able to reach high school girls at a critical stage makes this pedagogical approach ideal. The positive results, even with the short duration of the intervention, are encouraging.

Publications

Author and publisher information is provided below. Note that many publishers charge a fee or membership for full access. Permission/access must be requested through the publisher or author directly.

PUBLICATION DETAILS

Type
Conference proceeding
Author
J. Clark-Midura
V. Allan
K. Close
Publisher
Proceedings of the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education
File Attachment(s)
Publication Year
2018