Broadening Participation in Computing: Experiences of an online programming workshop for African Students

Tshukudu, E., Olaosebikan, S. , Omeke, K., Pancheva, A., McQuistin, S. , Jilantikiri, L. J. and Al-anqoudi, M. (2022) Broadening Participation in Computing: Experiences of an online programming workshop for African Students. In: 27th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE 2022), Dublin, Ireland, 8-13 July 2022, pp. 393-399. ISBN 9781450392013 (doi: 10.1145/3502718.3524773)

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Abstract

As computing education grows rapidly across the globe, there is an increasing need to broaden participation and engage all students in computing, particularly those from underrepresented groups and developing countries. A programming workshop that uses various interventions to broaden participation was set up to empower African university students with computer programming skills to address this need. Out of 487 applications, 172 participants from 11 African countries were selected to participate in the workshop. This paper aims to explore the participants' experiences, including their motivation for attending the workshop, their programming skills confidence, what they found most useful for their learning, and the challenges they faced. Employing a mixed-methods design, our quantitative and qualitative results indicate that participants' motivations were more intrinsic. Furthermore, the results indicate that participants' confidence increased after the workshop. They found the hands-on sessions with the tutors to be most beneficial to their learning. We also observed that many participants struggled with access to basic ICT resources during the workshop, even though they were provided with the internet. Our findings highlight that participants are interested in learning programming; therefore, to support them, sustainable collaborative partnerships are necessary to provide relevant teaching interventions and resources.

Item Type:Conference Proceedings
Additional Information:This work was funded by the University of Glasgow’s GCRF Small Grants Fund, an initiative supported by an allocation of Global Challenges Research Fund from the Scottish Funding Council under agreement SFC/AN/18/2020.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:McQuistin, Dr Stephen and Al-anqoudi, Maha Said Khalfan and Olaosebikan, Dr Sofiat and Omeke, Dr Kenechi and Pancheva, Alex
Authors: Tshukudu, E., Olaosebikan, S., Omeke, K., Pancheva, A., McQuistin, S., Jilantikiri, L. J., and Al-anqoudi, M.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
ISBN:9781450392013
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2022 Association for Computer Machinery
First Published:First published in Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 1, 393-399
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher
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