Epistemic Network Analysis to Explore Women’s Engagement Solving a Modeling Task to Elicit Computational Thinking.

• In Event: Student Engagement and Cognitive Processes in Engineering and Computing Education

Abstract

This study addresses the need to prepare more women in computer-related fields. We examined girls’ and boys’ engagement in an open-ended modeling task that elicits computational thinking. Using Discourse Analysis [1] and Epistemic Network Analysis [2], we analyzed the relationship between cognitive engagement and computational thinking for both groups. We also analyzed the similarities and distinctions between both groups. Both teams were cognitively engaged in the problem-solving episode using all six characteristics of cognitive engagement. However, each team elicited computational thinking in different ways, with girls developing decomposition, abstraction, and patterns; whilst the boys developed abstraction and patterns with little mediation from decomposition.

Authors

• Beatriz Alejandra Galarza Tohen, Purdue University

• Guadalupe Carmona, University of Texas - San Antonio