Maria Knobelsdorf, University of Dortmund, Germany - Didaktik der ...

aim to react on these topics, experiments focus on a new explanation
of these issues, which is outlined in section 2.2 .
2.1 Misconceptions of Computing
The situation in CS education is often characterized by limited
interest in computing, due to e.g. misconceptions, attitudes, gender-bias,
and similar issues [14, 20, 24, 28, 33, 35].
For CS unplugged activities are some evaluative reports available:
Feaster et. al. ([10], p.252) conclude that “the program had no
statistically significant impact on student attitudes toward computer
science or perceived content understanding.” Taub et.al.
[35] yield similar results (p.24) and found the following explanation
(similar to [36]): “only some of the objectives were addressed
in the activities, […] the activities do not engage with the students’
prior knowledge and […] most of the activities are not
explicitly linked to central concepts in CS” (p.1) and thus modifications
to the activities are needed (A proposal for such modifications
can be found in [2]).
Basically, programs to increase interest (see section 1. ) aim at
demonstrating a ‘true’ image of the discipline, showing that it is
accessible for outsiders or minorities, motivating by highlighting
(different) career choices, and so on. In essence, these activities
are trying to minimize misconceptions of computing. The – often
implicit – approach is to exchange limited conceptions by more
suitable ones.
What, if students who are skeptical and don’t see the usefulness
for their daily lives are right? Probably the activities described
above are successful in triggering situational interest, but not in
maintaining and developing individual interest [25]? What if their
so-called misconceptions indeed are suitable for their current
personal situations, in which they are mostly users of digital artifacts,
and not programmers or computer scientists?
Consequently, the approach presented here does not aim for (immediately)
changing the perception of the discipline, but to
change the perception of digital artifacts, and of suitable interaction
patterns with digital artifacts. And this then is the starting
point for being able to perceive the discipline within a different
framework.
2.2 Analysis of Insider and Outsider
The claim that the perception of digital artifacts is of more immediate
concern is based on the research in computing biographies;
its results will be briefly presented in this section.
Crutzen [8] deconstructed the opposition of use and design in
computer science. According to this analysis, “the symbolic
meaning of use and design is constructed as an opposition in
which design is active and virtuous and use is passive and not
creative” – and in addition users are constructed as ‘outsiders’,
whereas designers are ‘Insiders’.
In Schulte and Knobelsdorf [32] the effects of prior experiences
on attitudes and enrollment in computer science were analyzed.
The dichotomy of ‘use’ (utilizing pre-given applications) and
‘design’ (creating new programs and applications), based on [8],
was used. Due to this dichotomy, Outsiders perceive themselves
as capable only of interacting with a computer in terms of using,
whereas Insiders perceive themselves as more competent due to
the skill to design new digital artifacts.
In some contrast to the original assumption of such a gap between
‘use’ and ‘design’, the empirical results of the study revealed
another biographical process of unaffiliated students. This lead to
a third concept: ‘professional use’. It refers to the ability to administrate
digital devices, and a focus on interaction with the comput-
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er in terms of installing, configuring, and solving (usage) problems
(see [32]).
This is connected with a misconception of the computing disciplines
by Outsiders, who perceive a computing professional as a
kind of ‘digital caretaker’: A person who takes care of and maintains
digital infrastructures and helps when something malfunctions.
Typical activities resemble cleaning, repairing, exchanging
and updating some aspects of the whole, but not activities like
designing, creating, or problem solving on a larger scale.
(Aside: There is a popular distinction between digital immigrants
and digital natives, where everybody born after 1980 is regarded
as being a native. In our study, only digital natives participated.
So the difference between use, design, professional use, and of
Insider and Outsider is within the group of so-called Insiders.)
The overall conclusion of this is that Outsiders are not discouraged
by those affordances educators may see (difficulties in learning
programming, abstraction, complexity), but by problems
related to the everyday use of digital technologies: coping with
errors, configuring, installing, and so forth. In other words, the socalled
group of Outsiders is not discouraged by perceiving an
insurmountable gap between them as users and the goal to become
a designer. Instead, they perceive a gap between use and being
able to become a digital caretaker.
Moreover, it seems as if this group perceives the digital world and
its myriad artifacts more or less as a given, natural environment -
like nature itself. This perception completely neglects the role of
human effort, creativity and engagement in developing and shaping
the digital world. (Aside: In personal communication with
other researchers’ they approved this diagnosis, but it still is – in
my opinion - so dramatic that more effort should be done in researching
this finding. See also section 4)
Based on the above description, what can be done to foster interest
for this group of outsiders? And, moreover, how can this be
done without deterring novices who are in the group of insiders,
and are already interested in topics like programming?
In order to find the answer, we need to explore the above outlined
model a little further. First of all, both groups (Insiders and Outsiders)
start as inexperienced users, e.g. as gamers or web surfers.
But somehow several (the Insiders) gain confidence, interest and
are motivated to explore digital artifacts further, and eventually
discover the possibilities of designing by adapting, configuring or
developing web pages and by programming. In contrast the Outsiders
experience that they barely cope with the affordances of
everyday interaction with digital devices. The reason for this
difficulty might be due to attributing an irrational behavior to
digital devices, and/or a lack of specific ‘digital skills’ – as if only
people with special abilities are able to persuade digital artifacts to
do as they are supposed to.
Interesting is the anthropomorphism in attributing ‘irrational
behavior’ to digital devices. It shows a lack of knowledge of the
internal principles behind the perceived functions; and this
knowledge gap is filled by construing anthropomorphisms in the
conception of digital devices; in the hope of being able to understand
one’s own usage problems.
And here we find two handles to foster interest: First, there is still
some interest in understanding ‘what’s going on’ internally. This
should be used and deepened. Second, there is some immediate
need to understand the structure of digital devices.