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In this basic interpretative qualitative study, middle school girls with no formal experience in algorithmic reasoning, abstraction, or algebra were interviewed individually in order to help understand and explain how they think about algorithmic efficiency. A contextually relevant problem (determining the maximum height an "egg-drop contraption" could be dropped without breaking) was described to the students who were then asked 1) to come up with the most efficient solution they could to the problem while describing their thinking for the interviewer; and 2) to determine, from a choice of three solutions proposed by the interviewer, which is the most efficient.
Friend et al. (Mon,) studied this question.