Ungdomars motivation till att lära sig programmering genom introduktionskurser
Today there is a shortage of skilled IT-technicians in Sweden. It is approximated that Swedish companies can hire 31 000 IT-technicians in 2015 and the need seems to increase in the coming years. One proposed solution to this problem is to make programming more desirable to youths. In this study we attempt to investigate the effects of an introductory course in computer science on youths? (16-17 years old) in a classroom setting. We investigate their attitudes to programming and IT as well as their motivation to learn programming before and after the course.The data was extracted with a questionnaire measuring their attitudes towards programming before and after course completion. Two weeks after the course we held interviews with several of the participants to complement the questionnaire.The results indicated that the participants found that the course gave them heightened interest in programming and IT, but did not make them significantly more interested in learning programming. The participants also found the course intrinsically motivating, which is more suitable for learning, with the ability to interact with each other as the main form of intrinsic motivation.We believe that courses such as the one investigated in this study, are a valuable tool to create interest and motivation for programming and IT. However we feel it?s important for these courses to provide an honest view of conventional programming, make programming feel relevant for the participants and what is possible to achieve with programming.We think that future research in this area should focus on the effects of introductory courses in computer science on other target groups. It would also be interesting to investigate what long-term effects these courses can have on students? choices of further studies.