Broadening Participation in Computing: Experiences of an Online Programming Workshop for African Students

Ethel Tshukudu, Sofiat Olaosebikan, Kenechi G. Omeke, Alexandrina Pancheva, Stephen McQuistin, Lydia John Jilantikiri, Maha Al-Anqoudi

Abstract: As computing education grows rapidly across the globe, there is an increasing need to broaden participation and engage all students in computing, particularly those from underrepresented groups and developing countries. A programming workshop that uses various interventions to broaden participation was set up to empower African university students with computer programming skills to address this need. Out of 487 applications, 172 participants from 11 African countries were selected to participate in the workshop. This paper aims to explore the participants' experiences, including their motivation for attending the workshop, their programming skills confidence, what they found most useful for their learning, and the challenges they faced. Employing a mixed-methods design, our quantitative and qualitative results indicate that participants' motivations were more intrinsic. Furthermore, the results indicate that participants' confidence increased after the workshop. They found the hands-on sessions with the tutors to be most beneficial to their learning. We also observed that many participants struggled with access to basic ICT resources during the workshop, even though they were provided with the internet. Our findings highlight that participants are interested in learning programming; therefore, to support them, sustainable collaborative partnerships are necessary to provide relevant teaching interventions and resources.