Girls start believing they aren’t good at math, science and even computers at a young age — but providing fun STEM activities at school and home may spark interest and inspire confidence.

A from the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý’s (I-LABS) finds that, when exposed to a computer-programming activity, 6-year-old girls expressed greater interest in technology and more positive attitudes about their own skills and abilities than girls who didn’t try the activity.

The results suggest both a need and an opportunity for teaching computer science, in particular, in early elementary school, said , a research scientist at I-LABS and the study’s lead author. Introducing concepts and skills when girls are young can boost their confidence and prompt interest in a field in which women today are .

“As a society, we have these built-in beliefs that are pushing boys toward certain activities more than girls. So our thought was, if you give equal experiences to boys and girls, what happens?” Master said. “We found that if you give them access to same opportunities, then girls and boys have the same response — equal interest and confidence.”

The study, published online in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, involved 96 6-year-olds, evenly divided among boys and girls, who were randomly assigned one of three groups. In the first group, each child programmed a robot, then answered survey questions; in the second group, each played a storytelling card game, then answered the same questions, while those in the third group only answered the questions. The survey was designed to collect kids’ opinions of technology activities, like the robot, and their beliefs about whether girls or boys are better at computer programming and robotics.

Programming, the researchers explained to the children, is “when you tell a computer or a robot or a phone what to do.”

For the robot activity, children chose an animal-like robot. They first followed step-by-step instructions on a smartphone to “tell” it to move forward, backward, right or left, then chose the instructions themselves, of the robots. The study found that after completing the robot activity, the boys and girls showed equal interest in technology and their own feelings of self-efficacy, or confidence in their own abilities.

But when compared to the “control group” of children who played the card game or only answered the survey without playing a game, the difference was striking: The designed activity with the robot reduced the gender gap in technology interest by 42 percent, and the gap in self-efficacy by 80 percent.

In other words, girls who programmed the robot were much more likely to express interest in programming and confidence in their own abilities to perform technology-related tasks than the girls who didn’t work with the robot.

Co-author and I-LABS co-director said, “Experience in programming the robot movement was something that both boys and girls thought was fun. But the most important finding is that we brought the girls’ interest and motivation in STEM up to the level of the boys. This was a big impact for a brief, well-designed intervention. How long will it last? That’s an important question for future scientific experiments.”

The findings suggest that incorporating more programming activities in the classroom or at home may ignite and sustain girls’ interest, Master said. Summer camps, after-school programs and other partner- or group-oriented activities present natural opportunities.

“The important thing is to make activities accessible to all children in a fun way that also helps them build skills,” she said.

The study’s robot activity did not, however, appear to change the children’s stereotypes about whether boys or girls are better at programming and robotics. While the girls who programmed the robot indicated greater confidence in their own abilities, that confidence did not alter their stereotypes, picked up from the culture, about girls and boys in general. The authors pointed to the potential of other experiences, such as meeting or seeing a woman programming a robot or working in a STEM field, for shifting these more deeply-held stereotypes.

“Stereotypes get built up in our heads from many different sources and experiences, but perhaps if we give girls more experience doing these kinds of activities, that will give them more resources to resist those stereotypes,” Master said. “They might be able to say, ‘I can still be good at this and enjoy it, despite the cultural stereotypes.'” The researchers hope to test this in future studies.

Researchers on the study also included , associate professor in the Department of Psychology, along with Adriana Moscatelli of Play Works Studio in Seattle. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

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For more information, contact Allison Master at almaster@uw.edu.

Cultivating young children’s interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics has become a leading educational priority, as experts predict that many future jobs will require substantial math and technology skills.

Early education in STEM topics, as they’re known, is critical for boosting later success in school and attracting students to occupations in those fields. But little has been done to optimize STEM curriculum for preschoolers or help children seek out and enjoy STEM tasks.

Now, a new study by ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý researchers shows that adding a basic social cue — making children feel like they’re part of a group — increased preschoolers’ engagement in STEM.

“At 4 and 5 years of age, social groups start to matter more to children and begin to influence who they are and what they’re interested in,” said lead author , a research scientist at the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences.

“If we can get children interested in STEM when they’re young, it has the potential to carry through their education and increase the number of students pursuing STEM careers,” she said.

The journal Developmental Psychology published the research Sept. 5.

“We are capitalizing on kids’ interest in social groups to help boost their motivation in STEM learning,” said co-author , I-LABS co-director and the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair at UW.

“It’s a wonderful example of how basic science discoveries, in this case about the social nature of learning, can have practical applications and help children,” Meltzoff said.

An even mix of 141 boys and girls about 4-and-a-half years old participated in the study. Each worked on two STEM activities:

• A math task that involved matching cards showing a number (e.g., “6”) with a card depicting numbers of objects (e.g., six bluebirds)
• A spatial task that involved a 12-piece puzzle

Before each activity, an experimenter told the child whether they were doing the task as part of a group (e.g., “You are in the green group, and your green group does the number game”) or as an individual.

Each child did one game in the group condition and the other game in the individual condition. The group condition was in name only — all the children were tested separately and worked alone, and there was no competition between groups. But the study was designed to have many strong visual cues to remind children that they were working as part of their group (e.g., wearing the group’s color t-shirt, seeing the group’s color flag on the table).

For each activity, the researchers measured how well the children did, how long they persisted on it, and how they felt about each of the tasks. After completing both tasks — and experiencing both the individual and the group conditions — children were also asked to choose which one they liked more.

On all measures, the children did better when they felt they were part of a group rather than doing the task on their own.

“When told that they were part of a group, the children persisted longer, did better, enjoyed the task more, thought they were better at it, and chose that task over a task they did as an individual,” Master said.

The effect was strongest on the children (90 percent of those tested) who liked being part of their group.

Although social groups can be a positive motivator for children, Master cautioned that care needs to be taken so children don’t feel excluded from a group.

To avoid these potential pitfalls, Master suggested several strategies for adapting the study’s findings for use in classrooms:

• Make classroom-wide groups (e.g., “Our class goal is to learn math”) so that all children feel included
• Use social language, such as “time for us to do our math problems” to emphasize that the activity is shared
• Set goals that emphasize the process of the academic activity (“we do math”) instead of children’s ability for that activity (“this group is really good at math, but that group is not”)

, a UW associate professor of psychology, is also a co-author of the study. Grants from the National Science Foundation and the Bezos Family Foundation funded the research.

For more information or a copy of the study, contact Master at almaster@uw.edu.

Women lag behind men in the lucrative computer science and technology industries, and one of the possible contributors to this disparity is that they’re less likely to enroll in introductory computer science courses.

A new study of 270 high school students shows that three times as many girls were interested in enrolling in a computer science class if the classroom was redesigned to be less “geeky” and more inviting.

The results, by ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý researchers, reveal a practical way for teachers to help narrow the gender gap in computer science by helping girls feel that they belong.

“Our findings show that classroom design matters — it can transmit stereotypes to high school students about who belongs and who doesn’t in computer science,” said lead author , a post-doctoral researcher at the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS).

The Journal of Educational Psychology published online Aug. 17.

“This is the earliest age we’ve looked at to study stereotypes about computer science,” Master said. “It’s a key age group for recruitment into this field, because girls in their later adolescence are starting to focus on their career options and aspirations.”

Co-authors of the paper are Sapna Cheryan, a UW associate professor of psychology, and , co-director of I-LABS. The National Science Foundation funded the research.

“Identity and a sense of belonging are important for adolescents,” Meltzoff said. “Our approach reveals a new way to draw girls into pipeline courses. It is intriguing that the learning environment plays such a significant role in engaging high school girls in computer science.”

In the study, high school boys and girls (aged 14 to 18 years) completed questions about:

• Their interest in enrolling in a computer science class
• Their sense of belonging in a computer science class
• How much they thought they personally “fit” the computer science stereotype

Then, the UW team showed the students photos of two different computer science classrooms decorated with objects that represented either the “geeky” computer science stereotype, including computer parts and “Star Trek” posters, or a non-stereotypical classroom containing items such as art and nature pictures.

Students had to say which classroom they preferred, and then answered questions about their interest in enrolling in a computer science course and their thoughts and feelings about computer science and stereotypes.

Girls (68 percent) were more likely than boys (48 percent) to prefer the non-stereotypical classroom. And girls were almost three times more likely to say they would be interested in enrolling in a computer science course if the classroom looked like the non-stereotypical one.

Boys didn’t prefer one classroom’s physical environment over the other, and how the classroom looked didn’t change boys’ level of interest in computer science.

“Stereotypes make girls feel like they don’t fit with computer science,” Master said. “That’s a barrier that isn’t there for boys. Girls have to worry about an extra level of belonging that boys don’t have to grapple with.”

Previously the UW team reported that inaccurate negative cultural stereotypes about computer science from the field and that can increase girls’ interest.

The researchers say that changing computer science stereotypes to make more students feel welcome in high school classrooms would help recruit more girls to the field, which has one of the among STEM fields.

“Our new study suggests that if schools and teachers feel they can’t recruit girls into their computer science classes,” Master said, “they should make sure that the classrooms avoid stereotypes and communicate to students that everyone is welcome and belongs.”