African-American Middle School Girls: Influences on Attitudes toward Computer Science

The number of women in computing is significantly lower than the number of men in the discipline, with African-American women making up an even smaller segment of this population. Related literature accredits this phenomenon to multiple sources, including background, stereotypes, discrimination, a lack of self-confidence, and a lack of self-efficacy. However, a majority of the literature fails to represent African-American females in research studies. The purpose of this study is to understand the factors that influence the attitudes of African-American middle school girls toward computer science. The results reveal that the African-American middle school girls in the sample generally have negative attitudes toward computer science. However, after participating in a computer science intervention, perceptions become more positive due to four factors: engaging in the intervention, the intervention content domain, the facilitation of performance accomplishments, and participant characteristics.