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Article
How Mother and Father Support Affect Youths’ Interest in Computer Science
Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research
  • Jody Clarke-Midura, Utah State University
  • Frederick J. Poole, Utah State University
  • Katarina Pantic, Utah State University
  • Chongning Sun, Utah State University
  • Vicki Allan, Utah State University
Document Type
Article
Publisher
ACM
Publication Date
8-8-2018
Abstract

Parental support is a predictor of children’s career interest and aspirations. However, mother and father support affects youth career choices differently. To understand how perceived mothers’ and fathers’ support affect career interest in computer science (CS), we developed two path models using both mother and father support gains to predict youths’ interest in CS. We hypothesized that perceived father’s and mother’s support would relate to youths’ interest in CS via youths’ perception of CS utility value as a mediator. We found that both mother and father support leads to interest in CS. However, father support was found to affect CS interest via the mediator utility-value beliefs. To provide explanations for these differences we used student interview data to explore how participants in our study perceived parental support.

Citation Information
Allan, Vicki, et al. “How Mother and Father Support Affect Youths’ Interest in Computer Science.” ACM Digital Library, 8 Aug. 2018, dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3230977.3231003.