CS Motivation for Black/African American Middle School Students

While there has been an increase of interest in computer science as a career choice among secondary students, there is still a gap among minorities and attracting them to the field. Even though there has been research to help teach programming to students of any age, no known research has specifically focused on the race of avatars in CS learning tools. Minorities have consistently had lower participation rates than their majority counterparts in CS and even though the minority population continues to rapidly grow, the participation of minorities in CS is not moving with the pace of the growth of the general population. Black or African Americans is one minority group with very low participation in CS. This paper is aimed at exploring whether a Black avatar paired with a Black teacher can engender a greater sense of belongingness and thus lead to more positive attitudes and confidences towards and greater interests in CS among Black or African American middle school students. As this research is unique in the area of CS education, it is expected that this research will offer a novel approach to recruiting and retaining Black students in computer science by attracting them to the field at an earlier age when they are exploring career choices.