The Matchmaker Inclusive Design Curriculum: A Faculty-Enabling Curriculum to Teach Inclusive Design Throughout Undergraduate CS

Document Title

The Matchmaker Inclusive Design Curriculum: A Faculty-Enabling Curriculum to Teach Inclusive Design Throughout Undergraduate CS

Document Information

• Subject Area: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Education, Inclusive Design Teaching in Computer Science (CS)
• Keywords: Inclusive Design, HCI Education, Responsible Computer Science, GenderMag, Curriculum Development, Faculty Enablement, Computer Science Education Reform

Research Background and Problems

• Identified Problems or Challenges:

  1. Although computer science curricula are increasingly incorporating social and ethical awareness, students fail to apply these concepts in design practices.
  2. Inequalities persist in technology design, such as neglecting the needs of different genders, races, and minority groups, yet such skills are rarely taught in computer science courses.
  3. Students have some awareness of bias but lack the ability to identify and address related issues.

• Importance of the Problem: Inclusive design can help CS students recognize and address user diversity issues during the design process, thereby improving the universality and fairness of technological products for various users. It also holds significant relevance for the professional practices of future computer scientists.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  1. Existing work shows that concepts like Responsible CS and Critical CS are emerging, but their implementation often involves standalone modules or philosophical discussions, with limited integration into practical coursework.
  2. Research in HCI has demonstrated that the GenderMag method effectively identifies and resolves inclusivity "bugs" in technology development, but there has been little exploration of how to integrate these methods consistently across CS curricula.

Solution

• Proposed Solution: The authors propose the "Matchmaker Curriculum," a structured and implementation-friendly framework for teaching inclusive design in CS education. By embedding inclusive design—one of HCI's subfields—into CS courses, this curriculum enables faculty to progressively develop students' inclusive design skills from early to advanced stages of education.

• Innovative Aspects:

  1. Gradual introduction of inclusive design across the entire CS curriculum, not limited to HCI courses.
  2. Use of the GenderMag method as a core tool to analyze cognitive behaviors of students and users to identify inclusivity issues in technology.
  3. Design based on the Train-the-Trainer (ToT) model and Community of Practice (CoP) framework, emphasizing faculty collaboration and control over teaching content.

• Implementation Steps:

  1. Motivating Faculty Participation (Challenge-M): Engage faculty by presenting specific student data and simple course improvement strategies.
  2. Teaching Inclusive Design Knowledge (Challenge-S): Introduce the GenderMag method, using cognitive styles, persona modeling, and hands-on experiments to help faculty understand inclusive design.
  3. Guiding Faculty in Curriculum Integration: Provide course templates, design frameworks (e.g., reverse design), and specific integration examples to support faculty in gradually developing course content.
  4. Building Faculty Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK): Offer hands-on teaching and group practice to help faculty effectively convey inclusive design concepts.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:

  1. Successful Faculty Implementation: 88% (14/16) of faculty successfully integrated inclusive design into their courses, including those with and without HCI backgrounds.
  2. Curriculum Coverage: Updated teaching content spans the entire undergraduate CS curriculum, from introductory courses (CS0) to advanced courses such as software engineering and project management.
  3. Student Feedback Analysis: Surveys indicate significant improvements in students' academic performance (e.g., assignment scores) and evaluations of the learning environment (e.g., inclusivity ratings).
  4. Practical Results: Curriculum integration significantly reduced failure rates (e.g., course withdrawal rates) in targeted courses compared to non-targeted ones.

• Advantages Comparison: Compared to existing standalone ethics modules or external resource-based approaches, the Matchmaker Curriculum emphasizes embedded learning, naturally integrating inclusive design into core CS courses.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  1. Limitations:
     • The study primarily focuses on specific faculty and students at one university, making the findings less generalizable.
     • The experiment emphasizes course design and student attitude improvements rather than comprehensive evaluations of technical outcomes.
  2. Future Directions:
     • Explore the applicability of the curriculum framework in diverse educational contexts (e.g., research universities, community colleges).
     • Assess the practical impact of students' inclusive design skills on the software products they develop.