Non-Computer Science Majored Women Students Perspective on a Pictorial Programming Environment

Although, programming classes have been taught with variety of ways and different tools to increase the student retention, women and minorities are still underrepresented in computer science and the awarded degree numbers are still way behind from the 2000 2006 numbers. In order to address this problem, a drag-on-drop programming environment is created to teach introductory level object oriented programming course for the students who have no prior programming experience. The framework eliminates one of the main challenges, if not the most, namely syntax issues with creating the programming statements automatically. With that way the students focus more on the logical issues of the task, instead of spending time on correcting typos and syntax errors. The applied survey to the student who is majored in another program but taking the Introduction to Programming course revealed that 88 percent of them found the application beneficial. Survey completed by non-Computer Science (CS) majored women students indicates that this new application will increase the interest level in computer science, while 82 percent of the non-CS majored women students prefer to use this application instead of current programming environment.