Programming Contests: What Can they Tell Us?

Since 1983, elementary and secondary students in Kentucky have been participating in an annual computer programming contest sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Each year data have been gathered focusing on three main categories: type of training and exposure to computers (most participants had studied BASIC in a programming class at their schools), gender differences related to computer use (males had been programming for a longer period of time and spend more time per week working at a computer than females), and factors related to contest scores (gender was not a significant factor; other factors varied over the years). This article compares the findings over the three years and poses questions resulting from these findings.