Computing Mentorship in a Software Boomtown: Relationships to Adolescent Interest and Beliefs

Abstract

Prior work on adolescent interest development shows that mentorship can promote interest in a subject while reshaping beliefs about the subject. To what extent do these same effects occur in computing, where interest and beliefs have traditionally been negative? We conducted two studies of the Puget Sound region in the United States, surveying and teaching 57 diverse adolescents with interests in computing. In the first study, we found that interest in computing was strongly related to having a mentoring relationship and not to gender or socioeconomic status. Teens with mentors also engaged in significantly more computing education and had more diverse beliefs about peers who engaged in computing education. The second study reinforced this finding, showing that teens who took a class from an instructor who aimed to become students' teacher-mentor had significantly greater positive changes in interest in computing than those who already had a mentor. These findings, while correlational, suggest that mentors can play a key role in promoting adolescent interest in computing.