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The United States Labor Department has projected that graduates of computing related majors will have strong job prospects (Vesgo, 2006). Unfortunately, the Information Technology (IT) workforce has been in shortage of qualified personnel, and the diminishing workforce problem is expected to be even more serious in the coming decade (Kamal, 2005; Peckham et al., 2007). Researchers have remarked that if we attract more female students to computing disciplines and sustain their interests in the IT industry, the problem of the IT workforce shortage could be resolved to a certain degree (Katz, Allbritton, Aronis, Wilson, & Soffa, 2006) since females represent over 50% of the higher education student population (Peckham et al., 2007).
There have been, thus, numerous research efforts to identify causes of the low female presence in CS as well as related solutions. Among the identified factors, lack of computer experience (Varma, 2002), negative perceptions of CS (Forte & Gudial, 2005), male dominant CS culture (Margolis & Fisher, 2002), lack of female mentors and role models (Byrne & Lyons, 2001), and lack of knowledge and understanding of CS (Jepson & Perk, 2002) are often referenced by researchers.
Lack of Computer Experience
While some researchers argue that prior computing experience has no relationship to success in CS (Cohoon, McGrath, & Aspray, 2006), there has been a great deal of documented evidence of female students’ lack of computer experience compared to male students when entering college (Teague, 2000). With comparably less female oriented software and games, females gain less experience with computers in their early years, and it is believed to prevent females from choosing CS majors (Tsagala & Kordaki, 2007). Providing computer experiences with weekly activities as well as personal and group work could change the female students’ computer use, especially in the quality of computer use, and this could alter their perceptions of the computer (Countryman, Feldman, Kekelis, & Spertus, 2002).