Assessing Children's Understanding of the Work of Computer Scientists

Abstract

We developed the Draw-A-Computer-Scientist-Test (DACST) to better understand elementary school students' conceptions of computer scientists and the nature of their work. By understanding how young children perceive computer scientists, we can broaden their ideas about the activities and images of computer scientists. We administered the DACST to 87 fourth-grade students (ages 8-9) as a pre-and post-assessment to a computer science curriculum. All students attended the same school and were taught by the same female teacher. Before the curriculum, we found that students most often drew male computer scientists working alone, and featured actions that were connected to technology in general (e.g., typing, printing), but not specific to computer science. After the curriculum, more female students drew female computer scientists than before, and the featured actions were more specific to computer science (e.g., programming a game). We also share insights about the classroom-learning environment that may have contributed to changes in students' understanding of computer scientists and their work.