Designing Inclusive STEM Activities: A Comparison of Playful Interactive Experiences Across Gender

Abstract

The STEM toy market is primarily designed for, and targeted to, boys. Even the Maker Movement, which has been hailed as movement for all types of people, is dominated by males. In this paper, we take a mixed-methods approach to identify the affordances of activity design that engage first through sixth grade girls in STEM play. We present data from three workshops where we tracked and analyzed 45 students' choices from one of two squishy circuits activities-free play or a socially relevant storybook design task. Using logistic regression, we show that the odds of choosing the storybook activity over free play were approximately 23 times higher for girls than for boys. Through the analysis of one-on-one interviews, we found that most girls were drawn to the storybook activity because they either wanted to help others or the design task provided them with a starting point.