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The Potential of Humanitarian Applications to Increase Interest and Motivation of Underrepresented Student Groups
Conference proceeding   Open access

The Potential of Humanitarian Applications to Increase Interest and Motivation of Underrepresented Student Groups

Lori Postner, Heidi J. C. Ellis, Gregory W. Hislop and Wesley Shumar
Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2, pp 1780-1781
14 Mar 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3626253.3635513
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https://doi.org/10.1145/3626253.3635513View
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Abstract

Social and professional topics Social and professional topics -- User characteristics -- Race and ethnicity
This study investigated whether humanitarian applications of computing are more interesting and motivating to students than non-humanitarian options and whether there are differences across race/ethnic groups. A survey was developed to measure students' interest by asking them to choose between two applications, one humanitarian and one non-humanitarian. Students were also asked to rate how motivating they would find working on a collection of humanitarian and non-humanitarian applications. 376 introductory computing students at four institutions completed the survey and 340 student responses were analyzed based upon their self-reported races/ethnicities. Students in all race/ethnic groups were more interested in and motivated by humanitarian applications over non-humanitarian options. Black, Latinx and White students chose humanitarian applications more often than Asian students, indicating a higher level of interest in computing for social good. All four groups rated humanitarian applications statistically higher than non-humanitarian at the p<.001 level.

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