How to Explain (and Overcome) 2% Barrier in Teaching Computer Science: Fuzzy Ideas Can Help

Computer science educators observed that in the present way of teaching computing, only 2% of students can easily handle computational concepts – and, as a result, only 2% of the students specialize in computer science. With the increasing role of computers in the modern world, and the increasing need for computer-related jobs, this 2% barrier creates a shortage of computer scientists. We notice that the current way of teaching computer science is based on easiness of using two-valued logic, on easiness of dividing all situations, with respect to each property, into three classes: yes, no, and unknown. The fact that the number of people for whom such a division is natural is approximately 2% provides a natural explanation of the 2% barrier – and a natural idea of how to overcome this barrier: to tailor our teaching to students for whom division into more than three classes is much more natural. This means, in particular, emphasizing fuzzy logic, in which for each property, we divide the objects into several classes corresponding to different degrees with which the given property is satisfied.