NSF Funds Research to Evaluate Effectiveness of K-12 Computer Skills Initiatives

Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Bradley University have received a $1.19 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the effectiveness of K-12 efforts to encourage computing skills.

The research will examine programs like code.org, Black Girls Code and summer computer camps to test their true impact and identify best practices for long-term success.

"Seeing the explosion of these organizations, the questions we naturally asked were, 'Does this work and what parts are working best?'" Decker said. "There is little to no longitudinal data that exists, so we are setting out to find the answers."

The research will be conducted by Adrienne Decker, an assistant professor of interactive games at Rochester, and Monica McGill, an associate professor of game design at Bradley.

Decker and McGill have already conducted a pilot online survey of students at six universities, including their own, to evaluate what programs they might have participated in before entering college, what they remember and how it impacted them.

With the help of the grant, they will expand that research to understand the past and current state of affairs with programs and activities that focus on teaching computer science before college. The researchers plan to look at demographic factors, including gender and ethnicity, to help identify what activities work best for which students.

The grant for the project — titled "Collaborative Research: Establishing and Propagating a Model for Evaluating the Long-Term Impact of Pre-College Computing Activities" — is one of several new grants announced Sept. 15 at a White House Computer Science for All Summit. The NSF will spend $25 million over the next year and a half to train teachers in and conduct research on K-12 computing.

About the Author

Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.

Featured

  • robot typing on a computer

    Microsoft Unveils 'Computer Use' Automation in Copilot Studio

    Microsoft has announced a new AI-powered feature called "computer use" for its Copilot Studio platform that allows agents to directly interact with Web sites and desktop applications using simulated mouse clicks, menu selections and text inputs.

  • AI microchip under cybersecurity attack, surrounded by symbols of threats like a skull, spider, lock, and warning shield

    Report Finds Agentic AI Protocol Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks

    A new report from Backslash Security has identified significant security vulnerabilities in the Model Context Protocol (MCP), technology introduced by Anthropic in November 2024 to facilitate communication between AI agents and external tools.

  • educators seated at a table with a laptop and tablet, against a backdrop of muted geometric shapes

    HMH Forms Educator Council to Inform AI Tool Development

    Adaptive learning company HMH has established an AI Educator Council that brings together teachers, instructional coaches and leaders from school district across the country to help shape its AI solutions.

  • illustration of a human head with a glowing neural network in the brain, connected to tech icons on a cool blue-gray background

    Meta Introduces Stand-Alone AI App

    Meta Platforms has launched a stand-alone artificial intelligence app built on its proprietary Llama 4 model, intensifying the competitive race in generative AI alongside OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI.