Understanding the Gap

Traditional research on gender differences in learning and motivation yield a rich outline of how self-efficacy, persistence, and learning outcomes differ between boys and girls. These differences are especially prominent in male-dominated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects, where girls are less interested and engaged despite negligible differences in actual performance. These gender disparities in interest and motivation are echoed in previous research on game preferences, but are quickly transforming as girls take greater interest in and play more games. This paper investigates affective and behavioral differences between boys and girls when learning to code in a game. Results indicated that girls and boys do not differ in their coding self-efficacy, but girls persist longer and may be more resilient in the face of failure. Our analyses provide implications for how future research may disentangle the interactions between self-efficacy in coding and games, failure, persistence, and gender role beliefs.