Friendship & Collaboration : Girls Partnering in a Storytelling- Motivated Programming Experience

Abstract: Women are still strongly underrepresented in the ICT field. It is worrying that even children can hold stereotypes about gender and technology, which discourage girls from engaging with technology early in their development. Previous research has found that encouraging collaboration and the integration of storytelling in programming are successful approaches for introducing girls to coding. In practice, children often collaborate with friends since they tend to engage in the same activities. This study explores how existing friendship influences collaboration between preadolescent girls participating together in a storytelling-motivated programming experience. Results reveal that when girls collaborate with a friend, they feel comfortable and confident to express their ideas and to reject or elaborate on their friend’s suggestions. The openness of friends towards each other and the social setting of friendship may impact collaboration. Role assignment in the form of task allocation supported productive collaboration, while dominance impeded it. The project indicates that the design of solutions that aim to motivate programming through storytelling has to provide enough support in adding narration elements through code. Additionally, it proposes suggestions for the design of inclusive workshops and hackathons.