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Title: Attracting Adults to Computer Programming via Hip Hop
The demand for qualifed computing professionals is high, with thousands of positions remaining unflled each year. To create more qualifed professionals, initiatives to attract and engage students in computer science have been proposed, but they tend to concentrate on primary, secondary (K-12), and post-secondary (college) levels. With many adults looking for better career opportunities, it is sur- prising that few computer science initiatives focus on attracting adult learners to the feld. This paper presents the results of an infor- mal computer programming course that teaches the foundational concepts of computer programming to adults as they program hip- hop beats. This course is designed to attract adult learners that otherwise might have never considered computer programming, building their confdence and skills. We conducted this course on- line, two nights a week, for fve weeks, for about 40 participants. Afterward, we conducted a qualitative analysis of written survey data. We found that the adult learners’ perception of computer programming changed during the course, with many participants planning their next step in computing education.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2048793
PAR ID:
10502701
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
ACM
Date Published:
Journal Name:
SIGCSE '23
Format(s):
Medium: X
Location:
Toronto, ON, Canada
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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