Research
My PHD work in Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State was on HCI and CSEd where I worked on designing artifacts to improve computer science education through design-based research efforts.
I focus specifically in these areas:
- Human-Computer Interaction—I am trained first and foremost as a front-end web developer. This led toward my path down HCI through the bridge of usability testing. In my research, I use HCI methods to help conceptualize, theorize, and operationalize problems. Regardless of domain, I employ mixed-method approaches to solving complex research problems. For example, I enjoy using interviews or focus groups as ways to generate rich discussions to hone in on particular viewpoints and themes. And I prioritize iterative design techniques that allow for users or individuals to design a tool or artifact with me. In turn, these qualitative approaches complement quantitative-based techniques such as surveys and web-scraping data to cement behaviors, observations, and assessments. I use these methods as my research dictates with respecct to context or design.
- Computer Science Education—I have always been interested in building things, by hand or through code. I realized as I went through coding courses, particularly in college, that the way most instructors approached teaching CS was extremely poor. CS is hard. And so, I knew that being a first-generation Hispanic woman and college student that my experiences were common. As I moved toward graduate school, I became very interested in serving as a CS instructor for underrepresented communities in informal learning opportunities. Within this, I also became interested in conducting research on how we can improve our efforts within CS education to prepare students from different communities better. As a faculty member, I have become interested in weaving socially responsible computing efforts (e.g., ethics, bias, social justice) in our CS curriculum.
- Broadening Participation in Computing / Diversity Efforts Underrepresentation of Minority Groups—Driving my research and teaching experience has been the underrepresentation of minority groups in computing education. I spent several summers in community-based programs teaching youth and teenagers of all kinds about programming. I am very passionate about highlighting the gender and racial gaps in computing efforts but also understanding the ways in which teaching approaches have hindered these populations. I am active in the attendance of various workshops, conferences, and institutes to ensure that I do my best to push other students forward and challenge these issues. Change happens if you are willing to be an active participant of unlearning ideas, being uncomfortable, and learning best practices.
Select Publications
Published Papers
- Booth, K., Pena, J., Eikey, E., Quigley, A., Pinter, A., & Sanchez, J. (2020, April). Design, Implementation, and Reflections on the Teaching of Computer Programming Modules to Underrepresented Students. In Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 2036-2041). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). PDF Slides
- Peña, J., & Rosson, M. B. (2019, October). Reaching Out to Diverse Learners with Non-Formal Workshops on Computing Concepts and Skills. In 2019 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC) (pp. 193-197). IEEE. DOI: 10.1109/VLHCC.2019.8818931 PDF Slides
- Peña, J., Rosson, M. B., Ge, J., Jeong, E., Sundar, S. S., Kim, J., & Gambino, A. (2018, March). An exploration of design cues for heuristic-based decision-making about information sharing. In International Conference on Information (pp. 677-683). Springer, Cham. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78105-1_78 PDF Slides
- Peña, J., Shih, P. C., & Rosson, M. B. (2016). Scenario-based design of technology to support teaching in inverted classes. IConference 2016 Proceedings.https://doi.org/10.9776/16160 PDF Slides
- Pena, J., Shih, P. C., & Rosson, M. B. (2016). Instructors as end-user developers: technology usage opportunities in the inverted classroom. In Handbook of Research on Applied Learning Theory and Design in Modern Education (pp. 560-571). IGI Global. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9634-1.ch027 PDF
Dissertation
Female non-programmers experience many factors that hinder their interest, participation, and success in programming. For many years, researchers have tried to solve the problem of attracting and maintaining girls and women to computing, yet the issue remains widespread today. Within this general problem area, I am particularly interested in studying whether and how programming skills and concepts can be taught to women who have already completed their formal education and are embedded in successful careers. I used a design-based research approach to investigate the design, offering, implementation, and evaluation of an informal learning workshop series, Code for Her. I observed the expected self-perception outcomes (e.g., increases in coding self-efficacy), but at the same time I uncovered indirect and unanticipated social consequences of the workshop experiences (e.g., an increased willingness to engage in technical conversations at work). The limited exposure of a workshop may be enough to spark interest in programming, but it will not produce a "programmer". Instead I have proposed and have been exploring a new concept to expand current discussions of what we might try to promote through informal education on computing skills - computational grounding. I argue that it may be fruitful to use computational grounding as a lens on female professionals' introduction to and growing appreciation of computational methods - as they advance toward more programming-like behavior in the workplace and at home. I articulate the construct of computational grounding and have developed a survey instrument to track its development. Working with this concept in the context of Code for Her, I create a narrative of female non-programmers' as working professionals who have been largely ignored in the computing education pipeline, but who may experience a range of benefits from such education. I include in the work a careful analysis of the women's learning experiences and behaviors with respect to cultural perspectives that I offer for consideration in building and presenting informal programs for computing education. Finally, I discuss design principles for others to use in designing and providing such programs.
More particularly I argue that, creating a welcoming and inviting informallearning pathway is an excellent starting point for many who have felt excludedfrom the CS community, regardless of present status in their professional careers.