Programming Skills are Not Enough: a Greedy Strategy to Attract More Girls to Study Computer Science

作     者：Catarci, Tiziana Podo, Luca Raffini, Daniel Velardi, Paola 

作者机构：Sapienza Università di Roma piazzale Aldo Moro 5 Roma00100 Italy 

出 版 物：《arXiv》 (arXiv)

年 卷 期：2023年

核心收录：

主　　题：Sustainable development 

摘      要：This paper addresses the issue of the gender gap in ICT, which hinders the digital transition of many countries. We present a methodology (along with two use cases) that leverages girls’ greater sensitivity towards social issues - such as sustainability and health - to mitigate some well-known stereotypes that make ICT disciplines, and software engineering particular, unattractive to girls. Our strategy is based on a grid approach which aims to strengthen both some important vertical skills (e.g., environmental sustainability and programming) and horizontal ones, such as public speaking, team-building and team-working, the ability to compete, and social networking. As remarked by virtually all studies concerned with the design of effective teaching strategies, one of the main points to consider is that teaching technical skills is not enough. The importance of soft skills in education is underestimated, and there is an urgency to make up for the lack of these skills. Furthermore, many studies have noted that the lack of soft skills affects girls more than boys. Copyright © 2023, The Authors. All rights reserved.