Evaluating the Long-Term Impact of Pre-college Computing Activities (Abstract Only)

Abstract

There is a critical need to increase the number of skilled technology workers in part due to the supply of workers in these fields not yet keeping up with demand. In an effort to increase the interest of students in studying within these fields, many commercial, governmental, and non-for-profit educational groups have sponsored numerous activities aimed to expose students to computing prior to college. With the advent of CS for All, there is further need to research these programs and evaluate their effectiveness. This session will gather researchers and practitioners interested in researching the impact that pre-college computing activities have on their participants. Participants will learn about a new initiative underway to make the job of collecting and tracking data easier. To be useful for the broader community, this NSF-funded IUSE initiative requires input from the community it wishes to serve. Participants will have the opportunity to provide valuable input on what their needs are for tracking such activities and what tools may be helpful for them, including methods for data collection to produce meaningful data that can be compared to data provided by other researchers and practitioners. The focus of this discussion will be the long-term impact of these activities; however, we will discuss data collection techniques researchers have used in the past to gauge short-term impact as well.