Work-in-Progress: Exploring Female Representation Issues In Computing by Writing Interactive Fiction

John K. Estell; Stephany Coffman-Wolph

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Conference: 2023 ASEE North Central Section Conference
Location: Morgantown, West Virginia
Publication Date: March 24, 2023
Start Date: March 24, 2023
End Date: March 25, 2023
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 4
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--44937
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/44937
Download Count: 73

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Paper Authors

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John K. Estell Ohio Northern University orcid.org/0000-0001-6419-6821

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An active member of ASEE for over 25 years, Dr. John K. Estell was elected in 2016 as a Fellow of ASEE in recognition of the breadth, richness, and quality of his contributions to the betterment of engineering education. Estell currently serves on the ASEE Board of Directors as the Vice President of Professional Interest Councils and as the Chair of Professional Interest Council III. He has held multiple ASEE leadership positions within the First-Year Programs (FPD) and Computers in Education (CoED) divisions, and with the Ad Hoc Committee on Interdivisional Cooperation, Interdivisional Town Hall Planning Committee, ASEE Active, and the Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Estell has received multiple ASEE Annual Conference Best Paper awards from the Computers in Education, First-Year Programs, and Design in Engineering Education Divisions. He has also been recognized by ASEE as the recipient of the 2005 Merl K. Miller Award and by the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) with the 2018 ASEE Best Card Award. Estell received the First-Year Programs Division’s Distinguished Service Award in 2019.

Estell currently serves as an ABET Commissioner and as a subcommittee chair on ABET’s Accreditation Council Training Committee. He was previously a Member-At-Large on the Computing Accreditation Commission Executive Committee and a Program Evaluator for both computer engineering and computer science. Estell is well-known for his significant contributions on streamlining student outcomes assessment processes and has been an invited presenter at the ABET Symposium on multiple occasions. He was named an ABET Fellow in 2021. Estell is also a founding member and current Vice President of The Pledge of the Computing Professional, an organization dedicated to the promotion of ethics in the computing professions.

Estell is Professor of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at Ohio Northern University, where he currently teaches first-year programming and user interface design courses, and serves on the college’s Capstone Design Committee. Much of his research involves design education pedagogy, including formative assessment of client-student interactions, modeling sources of engineering design constraints, and applying the entrepreneurial mindset to first-year programming projects through student engagement in educational software development. Estell earned his BS in Computer Science and Engineering degree from The University of Toledo and both his MS and PhD degrees in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Stephany Coffman-Wolph Ohio Northern University

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Dr. Stephany Coffman-Wolph is an Assistant Professor at Ohio Northern University in the Department of Electrical, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science (ECCS). Research interests include: Artificial Intelligence, Fuzzy Logic, Game Theory, Increasing Diversity in STEM, and Teaching Computer Science to P-12.

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Abstract

Female representation has been - and continues to be - an issue within computing, including computer gaming. It spans the gamut from exclusion via being forced to play the role of a male protagonist, to a “surface equity” where women are present but their gender is not acknowledged, to where women are blatantly objectified in a hypersexualized manner. Even software that at first glance appears benign can have underlying issues. As an example, for nearly 50 years, The Oregon Trail computer game, an early example of the Interactive Fiction genre, has been used in social studies classrooms across the United States to teach about Westward Expansion, allowing students to outfit a wagon for a 2000-mile trek where players manage supplies, determine travel pace, etc. While many complaints have been made regarding its stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans, the game has also embraced the erasure of the female experience along the Trail through such means as a lack of gender selection for the avatar and problem scenarios falling within the male domain. Given that women are stakeholders in educational software and are roughly half of the potential audience, it is essential they see themselves being positively represented.

The experiential research reported here is based on the premise that creating an alternative version of the Oregon Trail game that presents a more realistic view of women’s contribution to American Westward Expansion could help combat some of the gender stereotypes experienced. The computer science program at is addressing this issue through two initiatives. In spring 2022, students enrolled in the second-semester introductory programming course were tasked with creating an alternative version of The Oregon Trail by writing it from the perspective of the women who undertook this dangerous journey. Implemented in Java using a graphical user interface, students were charged with combating the stereotypes found in the original game and instead provide positive representations. The second initiative is an Interactive Fiction course being offered in spring 2023 where students will write educational software by programming in the INFORM7 natural language syntax environment. Offered jointly by both the computer science and English programs, students will consider character, narrative, dialogue, and differing perspective in crafting historically-accurate fiction featuring a female protagonist. The goals of these initiatives are to build students’ storytelling abilities in software development, examine diversity issues within a familiar context, help develop greater social awareness, and appreciate the value gained from different perspectives.

Citation
Format

Estell, J. K., & Coffman-Wolph, S. (2023, March), Work-in-Progress: Exploring Female Representation Issues In Computing by Writing Interactive Fiction Paper presented at 2023 ASEE North Central Section Conference, Morgantown, West Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--44937

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Female representation has been - and continues to be - an issue within computing, including computer gaming. It spans the gamut from exclusion via being forced to play the role of a male protagonist, to a “surface equity” where women are present but their gender is not acknowledged, to where women are blatantly objectified in a hypersexualized manner. Even software that at first glance appears benign can have underlying issues. As an example, for nearly 50 years, The Oregon Trail computer game, an early example of the Interactive Fiction genre, has been used in social studies classrooms across the United States to teach about Westward Expansion, allowing students to outfit a wagon for a 2000-mile trek where players manage supplies, determine travel pace, etc. While many complaints have been made regarding its stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans, the game has also embraced the erasure of the female experience along the Trail through such means as a lack of gender selection for the avatar and problem scenarios falling within the male domain. Given that women are stakeholders in educational software and are roughly half of the potential audience, it is essential they see themselves being positively represented. 

The experiential research reported here is based on the premise that creating an alternative version of the Oregon Trail game that presents a more realistic view of women’s contribution to American Westward Expansion could help combat some of the gender stereotypes experienced. The computer science program at  is addressing this issue through two initiatives. In spring 2022, students enrolled in the second-semester introductory programming course were tasked with creating an alternative version of The Oregon Trail by writing it from the perspective of the women who undertook this dangerous journey. Implemented in Java using a graphical user interface, students were charged with combating the stereotypes found in the original game and instead provide positive representations. The second initiative is an Interactive Fiction course being offered in spring 2023 where students will write educational software by programming in the INFORM7 natural language syntax environment. Offered jointly by both the computer science and English programs, students will consider character, narrative, dialogue, and differing perspective in crafting historically-accurate fiction featuring a female protagonist. The goals of these initiatives are to build students’ storytelling abilities in software development, examine diversity issues within a familiar context, help develop greater social awareness, and appreciate the value gained from different perspectives.  

AU  - John K. Estell
AU  - Stephany Coffman-Wolph
CY  - Morgantown, West Virginia
DA  - 2023/03/24
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Work-in-Progress: Exploring Female Representation Issues In Computing by Writing Interactive Fiction
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/44937
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--44937
ER  -