Exploring the impact of using Code Genie to enhance the programming knowledge of students and across genders: Experimental study

Statistics show that the computer science field is currently dominated by White and Asian males. This study aims to explore how to increase students’ interest in programming, especially females and underrepresented minorities, through the use of art and animation elements. Code Genie web-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) was designed and developed for this study so that a student can write JavaScript code that produces artwork and share with other students through this environment. In this paper we explore gender differences in understanding computer programming concepts and whether the use of art has any effect on improving this understanding for both genders. Pretest-posttest experimental methodology was used to collect the data from 65 high school students before and after three coding workshops. The results show that the students’ programming knowledge increased in the posttest and their confidence in answering the programming questions increased for both genders as well. The results also show that females’ scores with more coding time were better than their males’ counterparts while males’ scores with less coding time were better than the females of the same group. However, there was not a big difference in understanding programming concepts between the two genders