research-article

Cross-Country Variation in (Binary) Gender Differences in Secondary School Students’ CS Attitudes: Re-Validating and Generalizing a CS Attitudes Scale

Authors:
Arif Rachmatullah

Center for Education Research & Innovation, SRI International, USA

Center for Education Research & Innovation, SRI International, USA

0000-0003-0993-0477
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,
Jessica Vandenberg

Center for Educational Informatics, North Carolina State University, USA

Center for Educational Informatics, North Carolina State University, USA

0000-0001-6497-1840
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,
Sein Shin

Department of Biology Education, Chungbuk National University, Republic of Korea

Department of Biology Education, Chungbuk National University, Republic of Korea

0000-0002-8333-7375
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,
Eric Wiebe

Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, North Carolina State University, USA

Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, North Carolina State University, USA

0000-0002-5920-5225
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Authors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Computing Education Volume 23 Issue 4Article No.: 42pp 1–22https://doi.org/10.1145/3630014

Published:11 December 2023Publication History

ACM Transactions on Computing Education

Abstract

The current study compared American, Korean, and Indonesian middle and high school students’ CS attitudes. Concurrently, this study also examined whether the items in the CS attitudes scale exhibit country and gender measurement biases. We gathered data on CS attitudes from middle and high school students in the US, Korea, and Indonesia. The participating students took the same (translated) previously validated CS attitudes scale. We ran a unidimensional IRT, differential item functioning (DIF), a two-way ANOVA, and the Kruskal-Wallis H test. Despite the valid instrument, we found it inappropriate as is for international comparison studies because students from different countries interpreted some items differently. We then compared gender-based differences in CS attitudes across countries. The results revealed no significant differences between males and females in the Indonesian middle school data, whereas male students had significantly higher CS attitudes than female students in both American and Korean student data. Furthermore, we found the same pattern in gender differences in Korean and Indonesian high school students’ CS attitudes scores as in the middle school study. These findings underscore the importance of a country’s sociocultural context in influencing gap and diversity in secondary school students’ CS attitudes.

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Index Terms

Cross-Country Variation in (Binary) Gender Differences in Secondary School Students’ CS Attitudes: Re-Validating and Generalizing a CS Attitudes Scale
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computational thinking
  2. User characteristics
    1. Cultural characteristics
    2. Gender

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Published in
ACM Transactions on Computing Education Volume 23, Issue 4
December 2023
213 pages
EISSN:1946-6226
DOI:10.1145/3631944
Editor:
Amy J. Ko
University of Washington, USA
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Publication History
- Published: 11 December 2023
- Online AM: 23 October 2023
- Accepted: 12 October 2023
- Received: 9 June 2023
Published in toce Volume 23, Issue 4

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Cross-Country Variation in (Binary) Gender Differences in Secondary School Students’ CS Attitudes: Re-Validating and Generalizing a CS Attitudes Scale

ACM Transactions on Computing Education

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REFERENCES

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Recommendations

CS Unplugged and Middle-School Students’ Views, Attitudes, and Intentions Regarding CS

Gender Differences in Taiwan University Students' Attitudes toward the Web-based Learning

Computer attitudes of primary and secondary students in South Africa

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Cross-Country Variation in (Binary) Gender Differences in Secondary School Students’ CS Attitudes: Re-Validating and Generalizing a CS Attitudes Scale

ACM Transactions on Computing Education

Abstract

REFERENCES

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

CS Unplugged and Middle-School Students’ Views, Attitudes, and Intentions Regarding CS

Gender Differences in Taiwan University Students' Attitudes toward the Web-based Learning

Computer attitudes of primary and secondary students in South Africa

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