Exploring Students’ Experiences and Perceptions of Computer Science:

A Survey of Austrian Secondary Schools

Sara Hinterplattner

1 a

, Marina Rottenhofer

2 b

, Iris Groher

3 c

and Barbara Sabitzer

2 d

Linz Institute of Technology, Dynatrace Austria, Linz, Austria

Department of STEM Education, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

Institute of Business Informatics, Software Engineering, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

Keywords:

Students, Preconceptions, Computer Science, Survey Study.

Abstract:

Companies regularly report difﬁculties in recruiting ICT specialists. The shortage of skilled women in this

domain is especially prominent. Research shows that early exposure to STEM may spark children’s interest

and inﬂuence their future choice of careers. Children’s understanding and conceptualization of their physical

environment strongly inﬂuence their ability to grasp STEM concepts and learning outcomes in related subjects.

The goal of our work is to provide a better picture of children’s conceptions before they are confronted with

computer science as a subject at school. To investigate students’ preconceptions of computer science, a study

of 188 ﬁfth-grade students was conducted before they ﬁrst experienced computer science lessons at school.

We asked them about their perceptions and experiences of computer science. Our results show that both

students who identify as female and those who identify as male have a narrow view of computer science and

associate the ﬁeld mainly with working with computers. Despite the narrow view, many students show an

interest in computer science but few want to work in this ﬁeld in the future. Students who identify as male

have a signiﬁcantly higher interest in the ﬁeld than those who identify as female.

1 INTRODUCTION

According to the 2021 Digital Economy and Soci-

ety Index, “55% of enterprises that [have] recruited

or tried to recruit ICT specialists reported difﬁculties

in ﬁlling such vacancies.” (European Commission,

2021). Besides 70 % of employees lacking sufﬁcient

(digital) skills, there is also a huge gender imbalance,

with only 19% of ICT specialists being women. Fur-

thermore, there are insufﬁcient specialized education

programs and a lack of integration of digital subjects

in other areas.

The shortage of skilled workers, especially

women, is also noticeable for the global technol-

ogy company Dynatrace, which operates a software-

intelligence monitoring platform that “simpliﬁes en-

terprise cloud complexity and accelerates digital

transformation” (Dynatrace Austria GmbH, 2021).

Dynatrace has more than 60 ofﬁces globally, with

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9601-433X

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5772-0672

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0905-6791

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1304-6863

over 3000 experts and is growing rapidly. The head-

quarter of Dynatrace is in Linz, Austria, where the

founder and CTO Bernd Greifeneder works. In re-

cent years, the Austrian headquarters has felt the

STEM skills shortage particularly strongly, as its high

growth targets could not be achieved by recruiting

only from the Austrian labor market. Indeed, peo-

ple from more than 50 nations work for Dynatrace in

Austria and 25% of the workforce are non-Austrian

citizens. However, the effect of the lack of skilled

workers in the ﬁeld of computer science remains. To

counteract this shortage, the company has started ini-

tiatives to arouse interest in STEM subjects at an early

age to create more gender equality and foster the dig-

ital skills that will be needed in the future. As part of

this, different studies have been conducted. The pre-

liminary results of these studies are presented in this

paper.

Research has shown that early exposure to STEM

can spark children’s interest and inﬂuence their future

choice of career (Swift and Watkins, 2004; Maltese

and Tai, 2010; Russell et al., 2007). Young children

are curious and want to know how the world works.

However, their spontaneous interest in natural phe-

238

Hinterplattner, S., Rottenhofer, M., Groher, I. and Sabitzer, B.

Exploring Students’ Experiences and Perceptions of Computer Science: A Survey of Austrian Secondary Schools.

DOI: 10.5220/0011049000003182

In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2022) - Volume 2, pages 238-247

ISBN: 978-989-758-562-3; ISSN: 2184-5026

nomena decreases as they grow older (Osborne and

Dillon, 2008). How children conceptualize their en-

vironment may inﬂuence not only their choice of ca-

reer, but also their understanding of subject-speciﬁc

concepts and subsequently their learning outcomes.

These so-called preconceptions of natural and tech-

nical phenomena rarely agree with the scientiﬁc con-

cepts taught at school and are a fundamental cause

of learning difﬁculties in these areas (Kircher et al.,

2009). Thus, it seems reasonable to implement STEM

education as early as possible to preempt the develop-

ment of conﬂicting preconceptions as well as foster

children’s curiosity.

This study focuses on the desire to strengthen chil-

dren’s conceptions of computer science before they

are confronted with it as a subject at school. To inves-

tigate students’ preconceptions of computer science,

a study of 188 ﬁfth-grade students was conducted be-

fore they started learning this subject at school. At

the time of the test, the students had not previously

been taught other school subjects related to computer

science. The remainder of this paper is structured as

follows. Section 2 describes how computer science

education is implemented in Austrian schools. Exist-

ing research related to our study is discussed in Sec-

tion 3. The research method we followed in our study

is presented in Section 4. Section 5 presents the re-

sults of our study. Finally, the conclusion of the paper

and an outlook are provided in Sections 6 and 7.

2 COMPUTER SCIENCE

EDUCATION IN AUSTRIA

In Austria, computer science was introduced as a

compulsory subject at secondary general school for

the ﬁrst time in the 1985/86 school year (Reiter,

2005). Computer science was originally taught to

ninth-grade students (one teaching hour (50 minutes)

per week) but has now increased to two teaching

hours (Siller and Fuchs, 2010). Hence, computer sci-

ence remains limited to one grade level; consequently,

it is not yet taught to all students continuously or con-

sistently (Brandhofer, 2014).

In the primary school curriculum (grades 1 to

4), this topic is only mentioned as “general educa-

tional goal”, where the “child-friendly use of mod-

ern information and communication technologies”

is recommended (Bundesministerium f

ur Bildung,

Wissenschaft und Forschung, 2012). At the lower

secondary level (grades 5 to 8), computer science

is taught before the ninth grade in many school-

independent concepts. Indeed, computer science has

long been a major topic in many lower secondary

schools. However, since it is an optional subject,

there is no uniform curriculum or special training for

teachers, and the content therefore depends on the

skills and preferences of the teacher involved. More-

over, students attend these classes voluntarily. Due

to the different priorities and levels of implementa-

tion at the lower secondary level, compulsory lessons

in ninth grade can be a great challenge since there

is often overwhelming heterogeneity between the stu-

dents. For example, a student who may already have

programming skills could sit next to a student who has

never learned anything about computer science (Jarz,

2010).

To counteract this trend, the Austrian government

published its “Master Plan for Digitization in Educa-

tion” in 2018 (Bundesministerium f

ur Bildung, Wis-

senschaft und Forschung, 2018a) to adapt the educa-

tion system to the increasing importance of digitiza-

tion. Besides the aim to expand the technical infras-

tructure and better integrate digitization into teacher

training, the ”Basic Digital Education” curriculum for

lower secondary schools was introduced and imple-

mented for the ﬁrst time in the 2018/19 school year.

The implementation of this curriculum is compulsory,

but schools can choose to set two to four teaching

hours per week as well as whether to offer it as an in-

dependent subject or integrate it into existing subjects.

The curriculum includes topics such as social as-

pects, media design, digital communication, security,

technical problem solving, and computational think-

ing, where students work with algorithms and ac-

quire rudimentary programming skills (Bundesmin-

isterium f

ur Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung,

2018b). Although the government has taken a further

step toward early digital education with the compul-

sory ”Basic Digital Education” curriculum for lower

secondary schools, Austria and Germany remain low

in global comparisons. As shown in Figure 1, the

leading countries, Australia and the United States,

start their computer science education in kindergarten

(Grandl and Ebner, 2017).

This late start to teaching digital education raises

questions about students’ experiences and perceptions

of computer science. Therefore, this study aims to

answer the following questions: (1) what can be un-

derstood about the interest in computer science from

children who have not yet experienced computer sci-

ence education?, (2) what are the preconceptions

about this subject of children who have not yet ex-

perienced computer science education?, and (3) what

gender differences exist in the preconceptions of chil-

dren who have not yet experienced computer science

education?

Exploring Students’ Experiences and Perceptions of Computer Science: A Survey of Austrian Secondary Schools

239

Figure 1: Starting age of digital education: A global comparison (H

ormann and Sabitzer, 2020).

3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Several authors have discussed the misperceptions of

computer science among children.

Beaubouef and McDowell (2008) discuss the

common myths and misconceptions about computer

science and state that overcoming negative myths

would help students see computer science as an ex-

citing and fast growing ﬁeld that leads to many di-

verse and rewarding careers. Martin (2004) reports

on an exercise in an introductory programming course

in which students are asked to explain what computer

science is as well as draw a computer scientist. In

particular, the data from the drawings show that com-

puter science has a “fundamental image problem”.

Students lack a clear understanding of computer sci-

ence and computer scientists. Mitchell et al. (2009)

also report that few students have a clear notion of

computer science. Their perceptions of the disci-

pline develop early in their school career and thus

better integration between schools and universities is

needed. Yardi and Bruckman (2007) conducted inter-

views with teenagers showing that they perceive com-

puting to be boring, solitary, and lacking a real-world

context.

Gender differences in misperceptions have also

been studied. For example, Mercier et al. (2006) per-

formed two studies based on surveys, drawings, and

interviews to examine sixth- and eighth-grade stu-

dents’ perceptions of knowledgeable computer users

and their self-perception as a computer-type person.

Both male and female students mostly drew male

users and stereotypical features (e.g. glasses) were

more common among older students. Moreover, most

students said that they think a computer-type person

exists but did not believe that they were such a person.

Bollin et al. (2020) also report that interest in com-

puter science tends to decline among young women.

Hansen et al. (2017) developed the so-called Draw

A Computer Scientist Test to understand how young

children perceive computer scientists ﬁnding more fe-

male students drew female computer scientists that af-

ter their curriculum than before, whereas male com-

puter scientists were mostly drawn working alone.

There have been several efforts to remedy this sit-

uation and support students in developing perceptions

of computer science discipline as a discipline beyond

hardware and programming. With this goal in mind,

Grover et al. (2014) studied a middle school introduc-

tory computer science and programming curriculum

designed to increase students’ awareness of computer

science as a problem-solving discipline in a real-

world context. The authors asked the students about

their view of computer science before and after the

course and observed a positive shift in their percep-

tions of the discipline. Yardi and Bruckman (2007)

also propose a new curriculum to teach teenagers core

computing principles. The goal of this curriculum is

to present computer science as an innovative, creative,

and challenging ﬁeld with authentic, real-world ap-

plications. Bollin et al. (2020) propose using attrac-

tive teaching material and classroom interventions to

stimulate realistic interest for girls, such as working

in an interdisciplinary manner.

4 METHODOLOGY

To delve into children’s preconceptions of computer

science, a questionnaire consisting of two parts was

developed: The ﬁrst part described the perceptions

and experiences of computer science and the second

part asked children to draw a picture of a person work-

ing in computer science. This study examines the

responses to the ﬁrst part of the questionnaire. This

part contained six questions: four open-ended ques-

CSEDU 2022 - 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

240

tions for which a short passage had to be written and

two multiple choice questions. None of the questions

were mandatory to answer. The questions were asked

in German and can be translated as follows:

1. Are you interested in computer science? Choose

an option: (1) I am very interested in computer

science, (2) I am interested in computer science,

(3) I am a little interested in computer science, and

(4) I am not interested in computer science.

2. What is computer science? Provide a short an-

swer.

3. What does a person working in computer science

do? Provide a short answer.

4. In the future, do you want to work in computer

science? Choose an option: (1) yes, (2) no, and

(3) maybe.

5. Give the reasons for your answer to question 4.

6. List the people you know that work in computer

science.

The participants of the study were students from dif-

ferent secondary schools in Austria in different areas.

In total, 188 students were willing to ﬁll out the ques-

tionnaire. 68 of the participants identify as female

(36.17%), 118 as male (62.77%), and two did not

mention their gender identity (1.06%). At the time

of the study, all the students were between 9 and 11

years and attended the ﬁfth grade. This grade was

chosen because - at that time - students in this grade

had not yet been taught a subject related to computer

science at school. Moreover, the participants had not

received any additional computer science-related edu-

cation. Since this study investigates the students’ pre-

conceptions of computer science, this was seen as es-

sential.

The data analysis was conducted by the main au-

thor of this paper and three other researchers. Dis-

crepancies between the coders were discussed within

the author group to adapt the coding guidelines. To

analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistics

as well as content analysis methods were employed.

Statistical tests were used to determine if the means

of two sets of data were signiﬁcantly different from

each other. SPSS Statistics 25.0 was used to assist in

the descriptive and inferential statistics.

5 RESULTS

In this section, we present the results of the analysis

of the questionnaires. We ﬁrst present the students’

interest in computer science, followed by how they

Figure 2: Students’ interest in computer science (N=182).

deﬁne computer science. Next, we present their per-

ceptions of working in computer science and the peo-

ple they know who do so.

5.1 Students’ Interest in Computer

Science

In the questionnaire, the students were asked if they

were interested in computer science. They could an-

swer this question with the following four given op-

tions: (1) I am very interested in computer science,

(2) I am interested in computer science, (3) I am a

little interested in computer science, and (4) I am not

interested in computer science. However, the students

were not required to provide an answer . In total, 182

students (96.81%) answered this question, with 105

saying that they were very interested in computer sci-

ence (57.69%), 55 that they were interested in com-

puter science (30.22%), 19 that they were a little inter-

ested in computer science (10.44%), and three reply-

ing that they were not interested in computer science

(1.65%). Figure 2 provides an overview.

Of the 65 students who identify as female and an-

swered this question (95.59%), 31 responded that they

were very interested in computer science (47.69%),

22 were interested in computer science (33.85%),

nine were a little interested in computer science

(13.85%), and three were not interested in computer

science (4.62%). Of the 115 students who identify

as male and answered this question (97.46%), 74

stated that they were very interested in computer sci-

ence (64.34%), 31 were interested in computer sci-

ence (26.96%), 10 were a little interested in computer

science (8.70%), and none were not interested in com-

puter science. Figure 3 compares the answers by gen-

der identity. In sum, differences in the answers could

Exploring Students’ Experiences and Perceptions of Computer Science: A Survey of Austrian Secondary Schools

241

Figure 3: Comparison of students’ interest in computer sci-

ence by gender identity (N

=65, N

=115).

be observed. The distribution of the answers was

found to be signiﬁcantly different between the two

gender groups. Students who identify as male stated

signiﬁcantly more often that they were (very) inter-

ested in computer science than students who identify

as female.

5.2 Students’ Deﬁnitions of Computer

Science

In the questionnaire, the students had to deﬁne com-

puter science using a short passage. An answer was

not mandatory, however, all the students (N=188)

answered. The following answer was mentioned

the most often: “doing something with a com-

puter/laptop/PC” (n=129, 68.61%). (n=129, 68.61%).

None of the other deﬁnitions were as common (Table

1). This was also true when segmenting the answers

by the gender groups. However, there were some dif-

ferences between these groups. The terms mentioned

by the students who identify as female but not by

the students who identify as male included “automa-

tion”, “math”, “modiﬁcations”, and “website”. Nev-

ertheless, these deﬁnitions were also rarely mentioned

(i.e. once or twice) in this group. The terms men-

tioned by the students who identify as male but not

by the students who identify as female included “bi-

nary”, “cool”/“fun”/“great”, “doing something with

a device”, “installing”, “looking up things”, name

of a game console, “ofﬁce”, “operation”, “science”,

“smartphone”, “USB stick”, and “you need IQ”.

Again, the deﬁnitions were rarely mentioned (i.e.

once or twice) in this group except the cluster of

positive descriptions (“cool”/“fun”/“great”). As men-

tioned above, these positive descriptions were not

used by students who identify as female, but were

used by 11 students who identify as male (9.32%),

Table 1: Students’ deﬁnitions of computer science in total

(N=188) and in gender groups female and male (N

=68,

=118).

Deﬁnition n n

“doing something with a ... 129 58 71

... computer/laptop/PC/”

“a subject in school” 17 9 8

“I don’t know” 17 2 15

“programming” 17 9 8

“something with technology” 12 5 7

“ten ﬁnger system” 12 5 7

“cool”/“fun”/“great” 11 0 11

“surﬁng the Internet” 6 2 4

“something with information” 5 3 2

“doing something with a ... 3 3 0

...device”

“software” 3 1 2

“automation” 2 2 0

“hardware” 2 1 1

“operation” 2 1 1

“processing” 2 1 1

“science” 2 0 2

“binary” 1 0 1

“doing something with a tablet” 1 0 1

“installing” 1 0 1

“looking up things” 1 0 1

“math” 1 1 0

“modiﬁcations” 1 1 0

name of a game console 1 0 1

“ofﬁce” 1 0 1

“smartphone” 1 0 1

“USB stick” 1 0 1

“website” 1 1 0

“you need IQ” 1 0 1

making it the third most frequent answer for this

group. The second most frequent answer given by

this group was “I don’t know” (n=15, 12.71%). This

reply was only mentioned twice in the group of stu-

dents who identify as female (0.29%). Here, the sec-

ond most frequent answers were “a subject in school”

and “programming”, with 9 mentions each (15.52%).

5.3 Students’ Perceptions of Working in

Computer Science

The students were asked three questions about work-

ing in computer science. First, they were asked about

what people who work in computer science do. Sec-

ond, they were asked if they want to work in computer

science in the future. Finally, they were asked to pro-

vide their reasons for this decision. An answer was

not mandatory for any of these questions.

For the question about what a person who works in

CSEDU 2022 - 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

242

computer science does, it was possible to answer with

a short passage. Although an answer was not manda-

tory, all the students (N=188) answered. Similar to

the second question (“What is computer science?”),

the most frequent answer was “doing something with

a computer/laptop/PC” (n=78, 41.49%) even though

this answer was not given as often as before. The

second most frequently mentioned aspect was “pro-

gramming” (n=35, 18,62%), being mentioned more

than twice as often here, than at the previous question

(n=17, 9,04%). However, none of the other deﬁni-

tions were repeated by participants, as seen for the

previous question, and more unique answers were

given (Table 2). In the gender groups female and

male, the most common answer was again “doing

something with a computer/laptop/PC” (45.59% (f)

and 34.75% (m)). However, there are some differ-

ences between the groups. The terms mentioned by

the students who identify as male but not by those

who identify as female included “app”, “appoint-

ments”, “architect”, “boss”, “calculating”, “conﬁg-

uring”, “engineer”, “gambling”, name of a commu-

nication platform, name of a search engine, name

of a spreadsheet software, name of a word process-

ing software, “ofﬁce”, “operating system”, “problem

solving”, and “website”. Nevertheless, these deﬁni-

tions were also rarely mentioned (i.e. once, twice, or

three times) in this group. The group comprising stu-

dents who identify as female noted only one term that

was not mentioned by the other group: “chatting”.

This term was also only mentioned rarely, twice in

this case. The second most frequent answer given

by the students who identify as female was “I don’t

know” (n=14, 20.59%) followed by “programming”

(n=10, 14.71%). Similary, “programming” was in

the other group the second most frequent answer in

the other group (n=24, 8.47%) followed by “I don’t

know” (n=8, 6.78%).

For the question about working in computer sci-

ence in the future, it was possible to choose between

three options (yes, maybe, and no) or provide no an-

swer. Of the 183 students who answered the ques-

tion, 24 stated that they wanted to work in computer

science in the future (13.11%), 122 that they maybe

wanted to work in computer science (66.67%), and

37 that they did not want to work in computer sci-

ence (20.22%) (Figure 4). The answers to this ques-

tion correlate with those to question 1 (“Are you in-

terested in computer science?”), showing that the stu-

dents who classiﬁed themselves as being (very) inter-

ested in computer science could more often imagine

working in computer science in the future.

Of the 66 students who identify as female and an-

swered this question (97.06%), eight stated that they

Table 2: Students’ perceptions of tasks when working in

computer science in total (N=188) and in the gender groups

female and male (N

=68, N

=118).

Deﬁnition n n

“doing something with a ... 78 36 42

... computer/laptop/PC/”

“programming” 35 10 24

“something with technology” 15 6 8

“I don’t know” 11 14 8

“writing” 11 5 6

“developing” 6 2 4

“installing” 6 2 4

“supporting” 5 3 2

“software” 4 1 3

“calculating” 3 0 3

“doing something with a device” 3 1 2

“explaining” 3 1 2

“looking up things” 3 2 1

“surﬁng the Internet” 3 2 1

“apps” 2 0 2

“constructing” 2 0 2

“chatting” 2 2 0

“e-mails” 2 1 1

“ofﬁce” 2 0 2

“operating system” 2 0 2

“repairing” 2 1 1

“robots” 2 0 2

“teacher” 2 1 1

“website” 2 0 2

“appointments” 1 0 1

“architect” 1 0 1

“boss” 1 0 1

“conﬁguring” 1 0 1

“doing something with a screen” 1 0 1

“engineer” 1 0 1

“gambling” 1 0 1

“modiﬁcations” 1 0 1

name of a communication platform 1 0 1

name of a search engine 1 0 1

name of a spreadsheet software 1 0 1

name of a word processing ... 1 0 1

... software

“problem solving” 1 0 1

“squatting” 1 0 1

“USB stick” 1 0 1

wanted to work in computer science in the future

(12.12%), 40 that they maybe wanted to work in com-

puter science (60.61%), and 18 that they did not want

to work in computer science (27.27%). Of the 115

students who identify as male and answered this ques-

tion (97.46%), 16 stated that they wanted to work in

computer science in the future (13.91%), 80 that they

maybe wanted to work in computer science (69.57%),

and 19 that they did not want to work in computer sci-

ence (16.52%)

Exploring Students’ Experiences and Perceptions of Computer Science: A Survey of Austrian Secondary Schools

243

Figure 4: Students planning to work in computer science in

the future (N=183).

Figure 5: Comparison of the number of students planning to

work in computer science in the future in the gender groups

female and male (N

=66, N

=115).

Figure 5 compares the answers by gender, show-

ing no signiﬁcant differences, concurring with the no

signiﬁcant differences by gender identity in the an-

swers to question 1 (“Are you interested in computer

science?”).

Looking at the reasons for these decisions, the an-

swers differed depending on the answer given before.

Nine of the students who wanted to work in computer

science mentioned that they were very interested in

the ﬁeld (37.50%), six wanted to learn programming

(25%) including three who mentioned programming

games (12.50%), ﬁve liked “doing things on com-

puters” (20.83%), ﬁve noted that computer science

was fun (20.83%), and two wrote about role models

in the ﬁeld (8.33%). Students with unique answers

mentioned that they wanted to learn something new,

wanted to support others, wanted to learn computer

science, wanted to develop a better search engine, and

“were talented at computer science” (4.17% each). ).

Fifty-six of the students who maybe wanted to work

in computer science mentioned that they did not yet

know what job they wanted in the future (45.90%),

17 said that computer science was fun (13.93%), 15

said that they thought that a job in computer science

would be interesting (12.30%), 14 already had other

plans for their future in mind (11.48%), eight liked

“doing things at the computer” (6.56%), and three

were sure that they would be good at computer sci-

ence (2.46%). Explanations mentioned twice by the

students included that it would be too much work,

that it would be good to have the competency, that

programming would be good to know, and that com-

puter science would be very useful because it is “nec-

essary nearly everywhere” (1.64% each). Explana-

tions mentioned once by students included that they

liked surﬁng or having money, that it would be one

of their dream jobs, and that they had a role model in

the ﬁeld (0.82% each). Sixteen of the children that

did not want to work in computer science in the fu-

ture already had other plans for their future (43.24%),

11 did not know what they wanted to do (29.73%),

and seven mentioned that they were not interested in

computer science (18.92%). Answers mentioned only

once included that they did not want to sit in front of

a computer that much, that they did not know any-

thing about this ﬁeld, and that they preferred work-

ing with people, with animals, or in the sports ﬁeld

(2.70% each).

The comparison of the answers by gender identity

is omitted due to an insufﬁcient amount of data.

5.4 Students’ Role Models in Computer

Science

In the questionnaire, the students were asked to list

the people they knew who worked in computer sci-

ence. They could answer this question with a short

passage. An answer was not mandatory; however,

all the students answered this question (N=188). Of

them, 93 computer science teachers at their schools

were noted by 68 students (36.17%), while 64 men-

tioned that they did not know anyone working in com-

puter science (34.04%).

Altogether , 77 family members were mentioned

by 48 students (25.53%) including mothers (24 men-

tions), fathers (23 mentions), uncles (15 mentions),

aunts (four mentions), sisters, male cousins (three

mentions each), brothers, female cousins (two men-

CSEDU 2022 - 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

244

Figure 6: Number of mentions of people working in com-

puter science (N=188).

tions each), and grandfathers (one mention). More-

over, 14 students mentioned other people that could

not be classiﬁed as family members or teachers

(7.45%): ﬁve students mentioned general professions

including bank clerk, computer science teacher, elec-

trician, gamer, hacker, manager, modder, (medical)

programmer, software developer, and teacher (2.66%)

and one noted a famous coding inﬂuencer (0.53%). In

sum, 119 students did not know anyone working in

computer science except the computer science teach-

ers at their schools (63.30%) (Figure 6.

Of the 68 students who identify as female and an-

swered this question (100%), 45 computer science

teachers from their schools were mentioned by 28

students (41.18%), 39 family members were men-

tioned by 21 students (30.88%), 20 mentioned that

they did not know anyone working in computer sci-

ence (29.41%), six students mentioned other people

that could not be classiﬁed as family members or

teachers (8.82%), and one mentioned general profes-

sions (1.47%). Of the 118 students who identify as

male and answered this question (100%), 43 men-

tioned that they did not know anyone working in com-

puter science (36.44%), 48 computer science teach-

ers from their schools were mentioned by 40 students

(33.90%), 38 family members were mentioned by 27

students (29.66%), seven students mentioned other

people that could not be classiﬁed as family mem-

bers or teachers (5.93%), four noted general profes-

sions (3.39%), and one mentioned a famous coding

inﬂuencer (0.85%) (Figure 7). In sum, 41 students

who identify as female did not know any person work-

ing in computer science except the computer science

teachers at their school (60.29%) compared with 78

Figure 7: Comparison of the number of mentions of people

working in computer science in the gender groups female

and male (N

=64, N

=115).

students who identify as male (66.10%).

The results were compared regarding the depen-

dencies of the knowledge of people working in com-

puter science and their decision to consider a job in

computer science, but no statistical relations were

found.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this study was to examine children’s con-

ceptions before they experience computer science as

a subject at school. In this process, students’ interest

in computer science was investigated. It was shown

that most were very interested in computer science.

Only 1.65% of students noted that they were not in-

terested in computer science. All those students that

were not interested identify as female. Moreover, stu-

dents who identify as male also mentioned signiﬁ-

cantly more their interest in computer science than

students who identify as female. When looking at

the preconceptions of computer science, around 9%

of students did not know what computer science is

and around 6% did not know what computer scien-

tists do . The most common answer from all students,

even when splitting the group by gender identity,

was that computer science is “doing something with

a computer/laptop/PC” and computer scientists are

“doing something with a computer/laptop/PC” and

computer scientist are “doing something with a com-

puter/laptop/PC”. No signiﬁcant differences in the an-

swers of students who identify as female and male

were observed. However, only students who identify

Exploring Students’ Experiences and Perceptions of Computer Science: A Survey of Austrian Secondary Schools

245

as male described computer science in positive terms

such as “cool”, “fun”, or “great”. These answers

were provided by around 9% of students in this group.

Most students could imagine themselves working in

computer science (answered “yes” or “maybe”). No

gender differences were observed when describing

their future plans. It was also investigated whether

students knew people who work in computer science.

Most mentioned their computer science teachers at

school, but only 36.70% of students could note at least

one other person. Again, no signiﬁcant gender differ-

ences were observed within the groups.

In summary, our results show that both students

who identify as female and those who identify as male

have a narrow view of computer science and asso-

ciate the ﬁeld mainly with computers. Despite this

narrow view, many students show an interest in com-

puter science and can imagine themselves working in

this ﬁeld. Role models seem to be missing for most

students.

7 OUTLOOK

The evidence from this study implies that for chil-

dren, computer science is ﬁrmly linked to working

with computers. These observations concur with the

assumption of Martin (2004) that few children are

aware that computer science means much more than

this and that most lack a clear understanding of com-

puter science and computer scientists. However, our

study revealed that many students are interested in

computer science. Hence, if we can convey a positive

picture and broaden their view of computer science,

more might be interested in deepening their knowl-

edge about this ﬁeld. As also suggested by Beaubouef

and McDowell (2008), overcoming negative views

and myths would help students see computer science

as an exciting and fast developing ﬁeld. Interest-

ingly, no signiﬁcant gender differences were observed

in our study. One possible reason could be the par-

ticipants’ young age. As suggested by Bollin et al.

(2020), interest in computer science tends to decline

among young women. This again highlights the im-

portance of presenting computer science much earlier

in the life course and giving it more intensive atten-

tion. With the implementation of initiatives to arouse

interest in STEM subjects at an early age as aimed

by Dynatrace, we hope to spark joy, and awaken the

curiosity of many children to broaden their view of

computer science. Our investigations into this area

are ongoing, as further studies will accompany the de-

velopment of Dynatrace’s STEM initiatives for young

children.

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