The effect of CS unplugged activities on middle-school students' views, attitudes, and intentions regarding computer science

Leading team:

• Prof. Mordechai (Moti) Ben-Ari
• Prof. Michal Armoni

Project team:

• Dr. Rivka Taub

Brief

This project examined the impact of the CS Unplugged activities on the attitudes and intentions of middle school students regarding CS, as well as their views of the discipline.

Middle- and high-school students often hold incorrect views of what computer science (CS) is, leading to negative attitudes towards the field. In order to address these difficulties, Bell et al. developed a series of learning activities called CS Unplugged, with the goal of exposing children to central concepts in CS in an entertaining way, which require no interaction with a computer. Using questionnaires and interviews, we examined the effect of these activities on middle-school students’ views of CS, and specifically on their views of: (a) the nature of CS; (b) the characteristics of computer scientists and the practice of CS; (c) the variety of employment in the field. Our results indicate that although students generally understood what CS is, they perceived the computer as the essence of CS, instead of viewing it primarily as a tool – contrary to the aim of the CS Unplugged activities. We therefore suggest various additions to the activities with the intended effect of further altering the way students view CS.
This is the Master research of Dr. Rivka Taub.

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