Design and Evaluation of a Braided Teaching Course

in Sixth Grade Computer Science Education

Jan Vahrenhold

Arno Pasternak
Fritz-Steinhoff-Gesamtschule Hagen and
Dortmund
Technische Universitat
44227 Dortmund, Germany

Dortmund
Technische Universitat
Faculty of Computer Science
44227 Dortmund, Germany

arno.pasternak@cs.tu-dortmund.de

jan.vahrenhold@cs.tu-dortmund.de

ABSTRACT

As part of their National Call to Action the authors

of the study request to develop courses to implement new
computer science standards [10, p. 14] and present eorts
from the states of Georgia and Texas. The authors emphasize that a rudimentary knowledge of computing is insufcient in the digital age; instead, they demand Computer
Science to be taught on a continuum from basic computing concepts that can be attained at elementary and middle
school levels to deeper knowledge, skills, and practices more
appropriate for secondary school [10, p. 25].
An established way of teaching a continuum of concepts
is along what is known as Bruners spiral curriculum [2]. In
the case of Computer Science in lower secondary education,
we have proposed to follow this approach in what we termed
braided teaching [7]: a contextualized approach to course
design that organizes topics along strands which then are
taught in an interleaved way and along a spiral curriculum
(see [7] and the references therein for a discussion of this
concept and related work).

We report on the design and evaluation of the rst year

of a Computer Science course in lower secondary education
that implements the concept of braided teaching [7]. Besides being a proof-of-concept, our study demonstrates that
students can indeed be taught Computer Science (as opposed to Information and Communication Technology) as
early as in sixth grade while at the same time not falling behind with respect to Information Technology Literacy. We
present quantitative and qualitative results and argue that
Computer Science can be taught just like any other science
subject worth full curriculum credit.
Categories and Subject Descriptors: K.3.2 [Computers
and Education]: Computer and Information Science Education
General Terms: Design, Experimentation.
Keywords: Lower Secondary Computer Science Education, Braided Teaching, Computer Science vs. ICT

Definition 1. A strand is a sequence of items addressed

in class that satisfies the following criteria: (1) The items
can be assigned to a well-defined subject matter (by their
structure or their content). (2) The subject matter is identifiable and recognizable to the students throughout the sequence. (3) The subject matter is being presented from more
than one point of view or embedded in more than one context. (4) The sequence of items is addressed in more than
one teaching unit.

1. INTRODUCTION
A recent study [10] conducted by the ACM and the CSTA
reveals that in contrast to the crucial role Computer Science
and the technologies enabled by it plays in the 21st century
(see also [11]), Computer Science as a subject of study still
plays a minor if non-existent role in K-12 education. While
the study presents comprehensive data only for the U.S.,
reports from other countries (e.g. [1, 5, 12]) indicate that
there are only few success stories in general.
One important conclusion that can be drawn from this
study is that policymakers are not technology-oblivious per
se: 73% of the school districts in the U.S. have adopted a
curriculum that aims at Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) skills [10, p. 44]. In contrast, only 37%
of the districts have adopted a curriculum that goes beyond
this and aims at concepts in Computer Science [10, p. 37].

Two questions left open are whether this concept can be

instantiated in practice and whether positive eects can be
observed. We report on the rst year of a prototypical implementation of the concept and, based upon qualitative and
quantitive evidence, armatively answer both questions.

2.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF

A BRAIDED TEACHING COURSE

One of the major impediments in implementing and evaluating Computer Science courses in lower secondary education is that in the authors state these courses are not worth
full curriculum credit and that thus the student population
in these courses is somewhat biased. Fortunately, the administration at the Fritz-Steinho-Gesamtschule allowed for
a prototypical implementation of a Computer Science course
in sixth grade that is worth the same (i.e. full) curriculum
credit as Mathematics, Physics, Biology, and Chemistry. In
general, students choose one elective course at the beginning

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45

which is indeed crucial for ensuring that students do not fall

for the misconception of a many-to-one or even one-to-one
relationship between concepts and contexts.

of sixth grade; this course is one of French, Italian, Natural Sciences (a combined course on Physics, Biology, and
Chemistry), or Employment Studies. Each of these courses
is taught for 120 mins. per week and fully counts towards the
nal exams, i.e. failing such a course has the same eect as
failing Mathematics or English. In support of our research,
a Computer Science course was added to the list of electives.
In 2010/2011, 27 students enrolled in this course.

Unit 1: Buttons and Labels (5 Weeks).

An obvious requirement for contextualized teaching is that
students should be familiar with the context itself. A common body of knowledge for all students in sixth grade is the
computer and interaction with the computer, e.g. launching
a web browser, a word processor, or a game, and it seems
natural to start with the computer itself as context.
While students experience the GUI as the primary (if not
sole) interface between the user and the machine, they do
not preceive the GUI as anything but a black box. Thus,
their rst encouter with Computer Science is to open this
box and to use Tcl/Tk to build a launch button.

2.1 Overview of the Curriculum

The course reported upon was designed according to the
principles of braided teaching we proposed in an earlier article [7] and taught by the rst author, an in-service teacher
who has taught Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics
at the Fritz-Steinho-Gesamtschule for over two decades.
The course was organized along the following ve strands:
Programming: Statements, sequences, control structures,
variables and assignment, procedures, functions, . . .
(Semi-)Structured Data: HTML, XHTML, SVG, XML,
XSLT/XPath, . . .
Typed Systems: Organizing and dispatching by type, e.g.
classes in programming languages, or le types in an
operating system.
Multimedia: Raster graphics, vector graphics, sound, . . .
Operating Systems: Elementary functions, GUI-based applications, shell, remote access, . . .

button .opera
pack .opera

Ultimately, as part of the Programming strand, students

come to realize that all commands executed inside a computer can be represented in textual form.
With moderate eort students can design (mockup) a GUI
which resembles the GUI they see in their everyday lives.
The second part of this unit involves creating an array
of buttons and labels used to display each students weekly
timetable. At this point, students learn that the GUI is
composed of dierent types of components, i.e. the course
visits the Typed Systems strand.

Again in line with our original proposal, we used Tcl/Tk [6]

as the programming language for this course see our previous article for the rationale behind this. In accordance
with the schools policy regarding the use of free and open
software, the course was instantiated using a Linux environment. It should be noted that this choice also helped establishing equity since the vast majority of students had access
to computers at home which ran some version of a Windows
operating system (see Section 3.1 for more comments).

2.2

Unit 2: Creating a Web Page (5 Weeks).

Following up on the rst units last topic, the goal of the
second unit is to enable each student to create a small web
page displaying his/her timetable (thus making contact with
the (Semi-)Structured Data strand). At this point, students
realize that it becomes necessary to convert the Tcl/Tk output into an image that can be put on the web page. Since,
in contrast to most environments of other interpreted languages, the Tcl/Tk-console also allows to execute commands
of the underlying operating system, the course can move to
the Operating Systems strand rather eortlessly.
Using the import command provided by ImageMagick,
students can interactively capture the section of the screen
displaying their timetable and save it as a .jpg-le.

Details of the Implementation

The break-down of the curriculum for the rst year of the

braided teaching curriculum into teaching units and their
association with the strands is shown below:
Unit
Strand

text " start Opera " command opera

Programming

import pause 10 timetable.jpg

(Semi-)Structured
Data

The outcome of this rst encounter with the (Semi-)Structured Data strand is an understanding of the (hierarchical) constructs used in dening a simple web page and the
markup languages syntax. A typical markup of a web page
created by the students looks as follows:

Typed Systems
Multimedia
Operating
Systems

<html>
<head><title>Lisa s Timetable</ title></ head>
<body>
<center>
<h1>Lisa s Timetable ( Grade 6)</ h1>
<img width = " 90% " src = " timetable . jpg ">
</ center>
</ body>
</ html>

In the remainder of this section, we outline all teaching

units and verify that each strand is indeed a strand according to Denition 1. Criterion (1) (well-defined subject matter ) is veried easily by the above description of the strands
and since criterion (2) (easily recognizable by the students)
also depends on the way the teacher is presenting the material, only criteria (3) and (4) remain to be veried. The
above table shows that even in the rst year three of the ve
strands appear in more than one block of teaching units, so,
extrapolating to the second and third year of the course, we
can assume that the fourth criterion is fullled. This leaves
us with criterion (3) (more than one point of view/context)

Unit 3: Files, Directories, and Trees (3 Weeks).

As the students create more web pages (possibly using
their own images) the need for organizing the corresponding les becomes evident. Students realize that their les

46

equate to introduce the concept of variable in sixth grade.

To facilitate the transgression from (according to Piaget)
the concrete operational phase to the formal operational
phase, it is helpful to introduce the formal construct of
variables by using them for storing (representations of)
concrete, real-world objects.
As a result of the previous unit(s), students have a variety
of images created by themselves, and in addition to this,
students are provided with a collection of images. These
pictures are stored in a directory on the le server. Students
are taught how to load a picture into a variable and to work
with such variables, e.g. how to draw (on the Tcl/Tk canvas)
multiple copies of the picture stored in a single variable.
Again, the playfulness of sixth graders is build upon, and
students create pictures of, e.g. villages with streets, cars,
trees, and houses.
This unit lies in both the Multimedia and Programming
strand. As a follow-up, students will learn to use loops for
scripts which produce animated lms on the Tcl/Tk canvas.

should be easy to access, even if the class takes place in a

dierent lab. The concepts of file, directory, and tree are
introduced. In particular, students create dierent representations of directory trees and learn how to translate each
of these representations into commands for the operating
system level. Students learn how to create directories and
to navigate in a directory tree, reacting to situational conditions and teacher inputs. The dierent types of entries in
a directory (les and folders) and the dierent subtypes of
les present a new view on the Typed Systems strand.

Unit 4: Drawing in Tcl/Tk (8 Weeks).

In the fourth unit, the Programming strand is touched
upon for the second time. According to Denition 1(3), it
is mandatory to present this strand embedded in a dierent context. The course does so by having the students
create simple vector graphics using Tcl/Tk-commands thus
also embarking on the Multimedia strand.
The graphics are created either from instructions verbally
given by the teacher or trying to reproduce simple drawings
handed out to the students. In either situtation, students are
asked to write a Tcl/Tk-script that executes the appropriate
drawing on the canvas. To do this, it is necessary to analyze
which components in the beginning merely lines make
up a picture and then to translate them into a sequence of
corresponding instructions.
Finally, students move on to (describe and) create their
own graphics which allows them to practice modelling skills
required in Computer Science as well as in Geometry.

3. EVALUATION
The main goal of our evaluation was to investigate whether
students were able to understand the Computer Science concepts taught during the course of the rst year. We also
evaluated the students knowledge of ICT topics that were
not part of the course and investigated possible changes in
attitude towards topics in Computer Science and ICT.

3.1

Exams and Homework Exercises

A standard indicator of students knowledge of subjects

taught in class is their performance in exams. As pointed
out before, the course in question was designed from scratch
and thus no exams from previous courses could be reused.
Over the duration of one year, four written exams of sixty
minutes each were administered. The distribution of the
grades is given in Figure 1.

Unit 5: Raster and Vector Graphics (6 Weeks).

In the previous unit, students created, described, and programmed line drawings using Tcl/Tk. In the second unit,
they created a screenshot from a Tcl/Tk-window and used
the resulting .jpg-le as part of their web page. At this
point, the students merely used the .jpg-le without having been taught about the concept of raster graphics.
Following a spiral curriculum and continuing along the
Multimedia strand, the fth unit revisits the second and
fourth unit, formally introduces the concepts of raster and
vector graphics and points out the dierences between these
two types. In this unit, students work with .xpm-les instead of .jpg-les for a variety of reasons: First and foremost, the X PixMap format is a textual representation of an
image, and thus an .xpm-le can be opened and modied
using any text editor. Secondly, research on misconceptions
has shown that students tend to conate a concept and its
instantiation if only one (type of) instantiation is considered,
and thus presenting a second le format helps preventing a
conation between raster graphics and file format used for
representing a raster graphic. Finally, concepts in operating
systems (such as extensions and associated actions) present
themselves quite naturally.
During this unit, students work to produce a (vector)
graphic in Tcl/Tk (see Unit 4), export this into an .xpm-le,
modify it using a text editor, and nally view the result using a graphics viewer. In addition to the strands covered in
Unit 4, this unit also revisits the Operating Systems strand
and presents as discussed above a new perspective.

Exam 1

Exam 2

10

10

Exam 3

Exam 4

10

10

A
0

Figure 1: Histogram of the grades for all exams.

The rst exams histogram exhibits a slight imbalance towards less perfect grades but is not unusual for rst exams in
Sciences where students still have to struggle with the eect
of the rst contact with a new Science subject. The second exam, however, shows a rather dramatic shift towards
a bimodal distribution. At this point, we realized that the
schools general policy not to require extensive homework
exercises in Sciences should be overruled in favor of giving
a student more opportunities to recapitulate and practice.
Since even as of today, one cannot assume every student to
have access to a computer at home that provides an environment comparable to the one in school, we decided to provide
more but only paper-and-pencil homework exercises.

Unit 6: Variables (5 Weeks).

Piaget observes that the building up of formal relations
begins at about 11 or 12 years [8, p. 162]. Thus it is ad-

47

3.2

Not unexpectedly, the results from the third exam show

a boost for almost all students which can be directly attributed to more practice activities due to the increased volume of homework activities. The distribution of the fourth
exam is almost exactly what one would expect.

Finally, we compare the distribution of the students nal

grades (which are computed from both the written exams
and in-class assessment) for Computer Science, Mathematics, and Natural Sciences. The distribution (Figure 2) shows
that the grades in Mathematics follow an almost perfect
Gaussian distribution (again, this is not surprising given the
long tradition of Mathematics Education) while the grades
in both Computer Science and Natural Sciences exhibit a bimodality. What is interesting, though, is that there are very
few borderline pass cases in Computer Science, i.e. that
the fail grades were clearly separate from pass grades.
This rebuts some of the concerns raised by parents prior to
the course, namely that a course in a new subject would
aect their childrens chances of passing the nal exam.

Examples.
The fact that students in sixth grade are relatively young
poses a particular problem for exams in Computer Science:
on the one hand, students work with texts in some (programming or markup) language in our case Tcl/Tk, HTML, or
shell commands on the other hand, they often still struggle with the language of instruction (both in speaking and
in writing). While these problems have been found to occur more often with non-native speakers (roughly a third
of the students), another, even more challenging problem is
that ICT and Computer Science terminology has permeated
everyday language in a way that causes ambiguities and imprecisions that cannot be (detected and resolved) until one
has obtained a full understanding of the (scientic) meaning. Thus, it is necessary to ban test items which demand a
translation from one language level to another.
Humans think in images real images or concepts while
the computer manipulates (character) strings. Often the
last step of running a program is to visualize the results of
a computation. Conversely, modelling in Computer Science
ultimatly can be seen as transforming ideas (with interim
stages) into a textual form. Thus, one type of test item was
to let students draw a picture of the result from running a
Tcl/Tk-script or rendering a page described in HTML:

0.5

bike.jpg

CS
NS
MA

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

Figure 2: Grade distributions: Mathematics (MA)

Natural Sciences (NS), and Computer Science (CS).

3.3 Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

The evaluation of the students knowledge of factual and
procedural knowledge in Computer Science was measured by
pre- and post-test adminstration of Likert-type scale questionnaires and supported by semi-structured interviews using think-aloud surveys. Additionally, we gathered data
about the students attitudes towards Computer Science.

Joe has created the following three images:

me.jpg

Final Grades

train.jpg

Control Groups.

He now uses HTML for a markup of his webpage:

For all questionnaires and surveys, we used two control

groups. The external control group (CGext , n = 117) consisted of students from ICT courses at two other schools in
the same school district and age group. Their teachers were
informed of the braided teaching concept, the courses design, and the fact that questionnaires and surveys were to
be administered well in advance of the beginning of the respective courses. Due to the repeated adminstration of the
same questionnaires, a teaching to the test-eect could
not be precluded. To prevent such an eect to occur for the
rst author who was teaching the study group (BT, n = 27),
the items for which interviews were performed were selected
by the second author at the end of the course based upon
the curricula of both the BT and the CGext group.
At Fritz-Steinho-Gesamtschule, students in fth grade
are required to take a 360 mins. teaching unit on text processing, spreadsheets, and the schools intranet. To measure
the eects of this teaching unit and to verify that the student population was not dierent across the three schools,
we used an internal control group (CGint , n = 27) in sixth
grade that did not select Computer Science as an elective.

<html>
<head><title>Joe s Webpage</ title></ head>
<body>
<center>
<h1>Joe s gorgeous webpage</ h1>
Here s my new webpage . Do you like it ?<br>
That s me :<br>
<img width = " 30% " src = " me . jpg "><br>
<h2>Things I like :<br>
<img width = " 25% " src = " bike . jpg ">
<img width = " 25% " src = " train . jpg ">
<br>
Biking and trains .
</ center>
</ body>
</ html>

How does this page look like in a web browser?

As children at this age like to paint and draw the inverse
type of test items is possible (and highly popular): Write a
Tcl/Tk-script for drawing a given picture or use HTML for
a markup of a given web site.
1. Using paper and pencil, draw a picture of a chair and
a desk using three straight lines for each.
2. Write a Tcl/Tk-script to have the computer draw your
picture.

Questionnaires.
Due to the dierent foci of the courses and the fact that
the CGint control group did not receive either Computer

48

Yes/No/Dont Know Item

I know what a variable is.
I know what a vector graphic is.
I know what a directory tree is.
I know what a directory is.
One can use a variable to store a value.

Pre-Test
BT/ CGint BT/ CGext
0.33
0.54
0.29
0.40
0.19
0.15
0.21
0.21
0.84
0.47

Post-Test
BT/ CGint BT/ CGext
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.000
0.01
0.001
1.0
0.25
0.005
0.28

Figure 3: Self-assessment of the study group relative to each of the control groups (p-values for the 2 -test).
Science or (additional) ICT training, all items in the questionnaires allowed for an I dont know what this question is
about answer. Each questionnaire consisted of three parts:
(i) 29 yes/no/dont know-type items (including crossvalidating items) that aimed at the self-assessment of
factual knowledge (e.g. I know what an operating
system is or Variables can be used to store values).
(ii) 20 Likert-type items that aimed at the self-assessment
of abilities (e.g. I know how to use a word processing
system or I know my way around in the WWW)
and attitudes towards programming (e.g. Programming is important in Computer Science or If a program works, it is not important how it was programmed).
(iii) 21 Likert-type items that aimed at personal experiences and attitudes towards Computer Science (e.g.
Im using a computer many times a week, I enrolled
for this course because my parents made me to, Boys
are more successful in Computer Science than girls).
Due to space constraints, we only report on the evaluation
of a few of the items related to factual knowledge, i.e. taken
from the rst part of the questionnaire. These items asked
the students to assess whether they knew what a certain
concept in Computer Science or ICT is.
Figure 3 summarizes the statistical evaluation of the selfassessment in pre- and post-test questionnaires. For each
setting, we used a 2 -test for the hypothesis that the BT
group and either of the two control groups responded according to the same distribution. For none of the items, the
evaluation of the pre-test signicantly substantiated a rejection of this hypothesis, i.e., the groups responses could not
be discriminated. The evaluation of the post-test, however,
showed that seven out of ten times, the hypothesis has to be
rejected with a very high level of signicance (p 0.01). In
decreasing order of signicance, these items pertain to variables, vector graphics, and directory trees. Since the results
are statistically signicant for both the comparison with
CGint and CGext , we can conclude that the students in the
BT group have a higher condence in their level of knowledge (for instance, the distribution of yes:no:dont know
(in percent) for the vector graphics item was 78:11:11 for
the BT group while it was 31:54:15 for CGint and 22:39:39
for CGext ). The items for which no statistically signicant
dierence could be observed pertain to directories (i.e. a
concept students might be acquainted with from their everyday use of a computer) and the question of whether it is
possible to use a variable to store a value (see next section).

Interviews.
To validate the students self-assessments, a total of 54
interviews was conducted during the last week of the school-

49

year. 19 interviews were conducted in the BT course and

35 interviews were conducted in the CGext and CGint group.
The participants from the CGext and CGint groups were selected by their respective teachers, thus we can safely assume
that the level of knowledge represented in these interviews
does not underestimate the average level of the group.
The interviews touched upon the following topics: (i) les
and directories, (ii) text processing, (iii) variables, and (iv)
graphics. Of these, topics (i), (iii), and (iv) are part of the
braided teaching curriculum, and topics (i), (ii), and (iv)
are part of the ICT Literacy part of the Information
and Communication Technology in Secondary Education
curriculum of the UNESCO [3, Units A2, A3, and A6].
We classied the interviews addressing a certain topic
w.r.t. whether the topic was unknown or known. If it was
known, follow-up questions were evaluated to classify how
much (no/partial/full) understanding was evident.
For the variable concept (for which the dierence in
self-assessment was strongest), the interviews conrmed a
strong dierence between BT and the control groups
variable
n unknown
no
partial full
BT
18
17%
28%
22%
33%
CGint + CGext 18
100%
0%
0%
0%
A similar conrmation was made for the vector graphics concept; this item, however, also revealed an even more
prominent dierence in self-assessement (where 78% stated
they knew the concept) and external evaluation (where 56%
were found not to know the concept by name). This astonishing dierence in combination with the fact that the
students were rather well able to work with vector graphics
in the exams (see above) prompts us to revisit the respective
teaching unit to ensure that the concept as such is presented
and contrasted with raster graphics much prominently.
To examine the eects of the BT course on the knowledge
of ICT concepts, we included a question related to directory
trees; also, we asked the students how they would (in a
word processing systems) transform a left-aligned text into
a centered text. For this question, we provided printouts
of the text in left-aligned and centered form. Both items
(subdirectories/centering) are explicitly mentioned in
the UNECSO ICT curriculum [3, p. 59/61].
directory tree
n unknown
no
partial full
BT
13
38%
15%
23%
23%
CGint
12
58%
33%
8%
0%
CGext
4
75%
0%
25%
0%
The responses to the rst question showed that students
from the BT group showed a much deeper understanding
of the hierarchical concept represented by a directory tree
an indication that Computer Science indeed augments the
understanding of an ICT concept.
As mentioned in Section 2.2, one goal of our course was to
open the black box as which a computer and the software

is perceived. To our (pleasant) surprise, the success w.r.t.

this goal became evident when evaluating the responses to
the text centering question which had been designed to
verify the hypothesis that Computer Science and ICT could
be distinguished by, e.g., the procedural knowledge w.r.t.
using a word processing system. We classied the responses
according to whether students suggested to manually insert
white spaces, to change the justication to centered, or both.
centering
n no idea white space justify both
BT
14
0%
21%
43%
36%
CGint
12
34%
25%
41%
0%
CGext
19
21%
42%
31%
4%
While a signicant percentage of students in each of the
groups suggested the appropriate solution, it is striking to
observe that the BT group was the only group where every
student interviewed could solve the problem and almost 80%
chose the appropriate answer. The answers to this item
indicate that students were in fact able to transfer a concept
(justication) from a plain-text markup language (HTML)
to the use of GUI in a word processing system.

The disagreement with the hypothesis is stronger than

reported by Taub et al. [9]. Whether this is due to the course
design (Computer Science vs. Computer Science Outreach)
or to external factors (see above) remains to be investigated.
In fact, the result that all groups except the male students in
the BT group were led to stronger disagreement raises the
question whether such external factors (possibly including
the male(!) teacher as a role model) are predominant.

Gender Issues.

The support of the colleagues teaching the CGext courses as

well as of the administration of the Fritz-Steinho-Gesamtschule was essential for this project. The authors thank
Holger Danielsiek, Rebecca Doherty, J
orn G
odel, and Wolfgang Paul for their help with evaluating the questionnaires
and with conducting and transcribing the interviews.

Summary.
The evaluation of the rst year of our braided teaching
course is encouraging: we have demonstrated that a Computer Science course worth full curriculum credit can be
successfully implemented in sixth grade and that statistically signicant results related to both factual and procedural knowledge as well as to attitude can be observed. Besides continuing the course described, future work will focus
on long-term eects and on revisiting the teaching material
with a stronger focus on conceptual knowledge.

Acknowledgments

Reports on in-class and outreach activities imply that one

crucial factor inuencing the recruitment of female students
is to debunk (negative) stereotypes and to do this as early
as possible in the students careers see, e.g., [4]. We followed up on (part of) a recent study by Taub et al. [9] and
included one item in the third part of the questionnaire that
asked for an assessment of the hypothesis that boys are more
successful in Computer Science than girls.
Group
BT (female)
CGint (female)
BT (male)
CGint (male)

n
8
13
19
14

Pre-Test
2.38 (1.77)
3.08 (1.16)
3.00 (1.38)
3.11 (1.27)

Post-Test
2.11 (1.76)
2.17 (1.03)
3.14 (1.74)
2.21 (1.48)

4. REFERENCES
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p-value
0.019
0.014
0.003
0.005

Figure 4: Boys are more successful in Computer

Science than girls.: mean/std. deviation (six-level
scale) and p-value for Wilcoxons signed rank test.
The statistical evaluation (Figure 4) of the students responses supports the following observations and hypotheses:
(1) The pre-test shows that female students who chose the
BT course revealed a stronger disagreement with the hypothesis than any of the other groups, i.e. a non-negative
attitude towards Computer Science can exist even in fth
grade and prior to any contact with Computer Science
and this attitude can be capitalized on. (2) Over the course
of one year, all groups signicantly changed their attitude
towards the gender issue; this supports the hypothesis that
outreach activities should target middle schoolers. (3) Except for the male students in the BT group, the results in
the post-test were almost identically distributed. This allows for the following interpretations: (3.1) Female students
in the BT course positively experienced their abilities and
validated their already strong disagreement. (3.2) Male students in the BT course also positively experienced their abilities and were led to a slightly stronger agreement. (3.3) All
students in the CGint group did not have any contact with
Computer Science, and thus external factors such als growing up and the inuence in other subjects, e.g. Mathematics, lead to a uniform shift towards disagreement.

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