5 research outputs found
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Practices for Engineering Gender-Inclusivity into Software
Although the need for gender-inclusivity in software itself is gaining attention among both SE researchers and SE practitioners, and methods have been published to help, little has been reported on how to make such methods work in real-world settings. For example, how do busy software practitioners use such methods in low-cost ways? How do they endeavor to maximize benefits from using them? How do they avoid the controversies that can arise in talking about gender? To find out how teams were handling these and similar questions, we turned to 10 real-world software teams. We present these teams’ experiences in the form of 12 practices and 3 potential pitfalls, so as to provide their insights to other real-world software teams trying to engineer gender-inclusivity into their software products
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Investigating the Impact of Teaching Inclusive Design Concepts on Ecampus Students’ Mindsets
Although computer science (CS) education researchers and practitioners have found ways to improve CS classroom inclusivity, few researchers have considered inclusivity of online CS education. We have begun developing a new approach that we term “embedded inclusive design” to address inclusive CS. The essence of the approach is to integrate elements of inclusive design education into mainstream CS coursework. This paper presents three curricular interventions we have developed in this approach, and empirically investigates their efficacy in online CS postbaccalaureate education. Our research questions were: How do these three curricular interventions affect (RQ1) the climate among online CS students and (RQ2) how online CS students honor the diversity of their users? To answer these research questions, we implemented the curricular interventions in four asynchronous online CS classes across two CS courses at Oregon State University and conducted an action research study to investigate the impacts. Results show that online CS students who experienced these interventions reported feeling more included in the major than they had before, reported positive impacts on their team dynamics, and increased their interest in accommodating diverse users.Key Words: Human-centered computing, gender, computer science education, online learnin
Student Experiences with Diversity and Inclusion in Technology Design Courses
Technology design education does not yet teach students how to effectively avoid embedding their unconscious social and cultural biases into artifacts they design and build, despite widespread critical examination of the social impact of technology. Unintended consequences that exclude or discriminate against people as they use technology reflect an inability to acknowledge diversity and inclusion topics as integral to technology design. Through a national survey, this exploratory study examined the attitudes of 115 students studying Computer Science, Information Science, User-Centered-Design and related disciplines, yielding insights into their classroom experiences; receptiveness to and concerns about engaging in discussions of equity, diversity and inclusion; and interest in addressing these issues in their own designs. These findings inform a set of proposed curricular interventions that incorporate ethics, equity, and bias into technology design courses as a supplement to traditional lectures introducing basic diversity and inclusion concepts
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Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching Inclusive Design
Inclusive design is important in today's software industry, but there is little research about how to teach it. In collaboration with 9 teacher-researchers across 8 U.S. universities and more than 400 computer and information science students, we embarked upon an Action Research investigation to gather insights into the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that teachers need to teach a particular inclusive design method called GenderMag. Analysis of the teachers' observations and experiences, the materials they used, direct observations of students' behaviors, and multiple data on the students' own reflections on their learning revealed 11 components of inclusive design PCK. These include strategies for anticipating and addressing resistance to the topic of inclusion, strategies for modeling and scaffolding perspective taking, and strategies for tailoring instruction to students' prior beliefs and biases