Happy girls engaging with technology: Assessing emotions and engagement related to programming activities

Abstract

The advent of programming languages for students (i.e., Scratch) combined with accessible programmable hardware platforms (i.e., Arduino) is becoming an emerging practice for computer science education (CSE). Robots and interactive installations are some of the most widespread artifacts for increasing students' adoption in CSE. But what kind of emotions motivate students to participate in such creative development activities? In this paper we present the results of an empirical investigation regarding the key emotions and their impact on a creative learning context. In our empirical evaluation, a group of researchers and artists designed, implemented, and evaluated three workshop programs. The workshops were based on the Reggio Emilia education principles, open source software Scratch and Arduino and were conducted in creative centers. We designed a survey, based on the main Emotional factors identified from the literature as important on the technology context. Responses from 37 twelve-year-old girls were used to examine the effect of Enjoyment, Happiness and Anxiety on students' intention to participate on similar creative development activities. Results confirmed the positive effects of Happiness and the negative effect of Anxiety. Moreover, the results indicated that students' Enjoyment has no relation with students' intention to re-participate in an activity. The overall outcomes are expected to contribute to design practices and promote the acceptance of creative development activities. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.