The project will trial a number of new initiatives aimed at improving girls’ participation in computing. This award comes at a crucial time in computing education, after research by the University of Roehampton and the Royal Society recently found that only 20% of candidates for GCSE Computer Science and 10% for A level Computer Science were girls.
Sue Sentance, Chief Learning Officer at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, said: “The challenge of encouraging more girls to take up the subject has long been a concern, and overcoming it will be critical to ensuring that the nation’s workforce is suitably skilled to work in an increasingly digital world."
Barriers which may impact girls’ engagement with computing in schools include a lack of role models in computing, and a perceived lack of relevance of computing to students’ future lives. The project intends to respond to these and other challenges through a range of tailored interventions, all run as randomised control trials. The effectiveness of each intervention will then be measured and add to the evidence base of how to support more girls to study computer science.
More than 15,000 students and 550 schools across England will be involved in the trials, which will run from 2019–2022 in key stages 1–4. The study represents the largest national research effort to tackle this issue to date.
‘Gender Balance in Computing’ is a collaboration between the consortium of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, STEM Learning, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, and the Behavioural Insights Team. Apps for Good and WISE will also be working on the project. ‘Gender Balance in Computing’ is one of the programmes associated with the wider National Centre for Computing Education – as part of an overall £84m package to improve computing
education in England by providing support for computing teachers at all levels, from primary to A level.
Helen Wollaston, Chief Executive of WISE, added: “Technology is transforming every aspect of our lives, and we will need more people with an excellent mix of technical and interpersonal skills. With so many new opportunities and career paths, it is essential that we engage more girls in computer science at GCSE and A level so that they can fulfil their potential.”
