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Shaping AI Interest in Rural Middle Schools with Unplugged Learning: Gender Differences and Teacher Insights
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Reports a classroom study of "Guess Whose Face," an unplugged card game teaching facial recognition and Representation and Reasoning to rural middle schoolers, analyzing pre/post attitude and knowledge surveys by gender and grade plus teacher interviews.
Problem
Rural middle school students have limited access to AI education, and it is unclear how an unplugged AI learning activity affects their interest in AI and conceptual understanding, including gender differences.
Approach
An iteratively refined unplugged card game (Guess Whose Face, modeled on Guess Who?) that teaches facial recognition as an instance of Representation and Reasoning, delivered by trained teachers in rural classrooms and evaluated with pre/post surveys and teacher interviews.
Key results
- Female students' attitudes toward AI rose significantly from 11.00 to 11.75 (p = 0.02, effect size 0.39), while male students' change was not significant (p = 0.42).
- Overall AI conceptual knowledge rose from 2.01 to 2.18, a marginal trend (p = 0.09) that did not reach significance.
- Grade 7 attitudes increased significantly (p = 0.03, effect size 0.46), while Grades 6 and 8 did not change significantly.
Measured effects reported in the paper
| What was changed | Where | Measured | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Middle school students · All students | AI attitude score: 11.15 -> 11.58 | No clear effect |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Middle school students · All students | AI conceptual understanding score: 2.01 -> 2.18 | No clear effect |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Female students · Female students | AI attitude score: 11.00 -> 11.75 | Helped |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Male students · Male students | AI attitude score: 11.35 -> 11.41 | No clear effect |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Male students · Male students | AI conceptual understanding score: 1.93 -> 2.12 | No clear effect |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Female students · Female students | AI conceptual understanding score: 2.07 -> 2.25 | No clear effect |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Grade 6 students · Grade 6 students | AI attitude score: 11.41 -> 11.94 | No clear effect |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Grade 7 students · Grade 7 students | AI attitude score: 11.23 -> 12.11 | Helped |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Grade 8 students · Grade 8 students | AI attitude score: 10.92 -> 11.00 | No clear effect |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Grade 6 students · Grade 6 students | AI conceptual understanding score: 2.11 -> 2.23 | No clear effect |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Grade 7 students · Grade 7 students | AI conceptual understanding score: 2.05 -> 2.35 | No clear effect |
| Participate in the Guess Whose Face activity | Grade 8 students · Grade 8 students | AI conceptual understanding score: 1.92 -> 2.03 | No clear effect |
Surprising findings
- Neither gender showed a statistically significant change in conceptual understanding despite the observed gains in attitudes for female students.
- Teachers removed the token mechanic and let students create their own guessing rules to simplify gameplay during implementation.
Limitations
- Small sample (about 60 students) with many missing post-surveys, and students came from two schools in one system.
- Participants were all academically or intellectually gifted students, limiting representativeness.
- The activity and survey were brief, reducing the chance of detecting learning changes.
Experimental setup
Datasets: pre- and post-activity student surveys (about 60 analyzed students) teacher interviews
Metrics: attitude score (3-15 Likert sum) conceptual knowledge score (0-3) normalized learning gain p-values from paired t-test, independent t-test, ANOVA effect size
Builds on: AI4K12 Five Big Ideas Guess Who?
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