HCC: Small: Supporting Males' and Females' Problem-Solving Strategies in End-User Debugging

本项目将审查与计算机程序的最终用户调试有关的两个问题。首先，男性和女性最终用户程序员尝试使用哪些策略进行调试，他们通过哪些策略获得成功？其次，终端用户编程环境应该如何支持和指导这些调试策略？大多数编程的东西最终都必须进行调试。对问题解决任务的支持，如调试，必须一直延伸到解决问题的核心，直到战略。尽管曾经只有专业程序员开发软件，但今天最终用户创建一些自己的软件是很常见的。常见的例子是电子表格系统和Web应用程序构建器，在电子表格系统中，终端用户通过创建和更改公式进行编程，在Web应用程序构建器中，终端用户通过演示所需的行为和/或在从调色板拖入的计算工具之间建立数据流连接来进行编程。还有许多其他的例子。事实上，仅在美国，每天就有数以百万计的最终用户在进行这种形式的编程--远远超过专业程序员。然而，不幸的是，越来越多的证据表明，一些女性并没有像男性那样从这些赋能设备中获益。最近有报道称，最终用户在接近和采用与调试相关的新软件功能的意愿方面存在性别差异，对软件功能的态度存在差异，最终用户程序员对功能的嬉戏修修补补也存在差异。在基于软件的问题解决中，性别差异的其他结果也正在显现。这些发现表明，软件本身存在一些因素，可能正在微妙地削弱女性在许多基于软件的问题解决任务中的效率。该项目有助于在不断演变的、不同的社会技术系统中有效地利用信息技术，使更多的人能够充分利用计算的力量。它将通过调查男性和女性成功地使用软件解决问题的潜在策略，然后调查如何支持这些策略来实现这一点。这项工作还将在如何引导和鼓励计算思维以帮助男性和女性解决计算中出现的日常问题方面取得新的进展，将经验方法与概念验证原型相结合。此外，它还将为教育项目做出贡献，特别是让有才华的女高中生作为研究实习生，以鼓励她们朝着计算机科学的方向发展。

This project will examine two issues related to end-user debugging of computer programs. First, what strategies do male and female end-user programmers try to use for debugging, and with which do they succeed? Second, how should end-user programming environments go about supporting and guiding these debugging strategies? Most of what is programmed must eventually be debugged. The support of problem-solving tasks such as debugging must extend all the way to the heart of problem solving, to strategy.Although once only professional programmers developed software, today it is common for end users to create some of their own software. Common examples are spreadsheet systems, in which end users program by creating and changing formulas, and web application builders, in which end users program by demonstrating the desired behavior and/or making dataflow connections among computation tools dragged in from a palette. Numerous other examples exist. In fact, in the U.S. alone, there are millions of end users doing such forms of programming every day - many more than professional programmers. Unfortunately, however, evidence is beginning to accumulate that some females are not benefiting as much as males from these empowering devices. There have been recent reports of gender differences in end users' willingness to approach and adopt new software features related to debugging, differences in attitudes toward software features, and differences in end-user programmers' playful tinkering with features. Other results of gender differences in software-based problem solving are also emerging. These findings suggest that there are factors within the software itself that may be subtly undermining females' effectiveness in many software-based problem-solving tasks.This project contributes to the effective use of information technology in evolving, heterogeneous socio-technical systems, enabling more people to take full advantage of the power of computing. It will accomplish this by investigating the underlying strategies males and females use successfully to solve problems with software, and then investigating how to support these strategies. This work will also produce new advances in how to guide and encourage computational thinking to help males and females solve everyday problems that arise in computing, combining empirical methods with proof-of-concept prototypes. In addition, it will contribute to education programs, and in particular will involve talented female high-school students as research interns, to encourage them in the direction of computer science.