Young Girls and Scientific Careers: may a course on robotics change girls' aspirations about their future? The ROBOESTATE project

Abstract

This paper presents a study intended to investigate the effects on children's career choices of the ROBOESTATE project, a summer camp aimed at introducing boys, but especially girls, to STEMs through educational robotics activities. Our reflection focused mainly on two research questions: (RQ1) May a course designed like ROBOESTATE encourage students, in particular female students, to pursue a STEM career? (RQ2) Did parents' opinions about STEM careers for their daughters/sons change after ROBOESTATE, especially for those who saw STEM careers as not practicable and/or not desirable? We conducted a quantitative and a qualitative analysis. Although the limited number of data collected during ROBOESTATE does not allow us to give a statistical significance to our results, we can say that ROBOESTATE-like courses increase boys', and especially girls', interest in STEM careers.