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1. Black Women Speak: Examining Power, Privilege, and Identity in CS Education

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3451344  

   Rankin, Yolanda A.; Thomas, Jakita O.; Erete, Sheena (December 2021, ACM Transactions on Computing Education)

   Despite the increasing number of women receiving bachelor’s degrees in computing (i.e., Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, etc.), a closer look reveals that the percentage of Black women in computing has significantly dropped in recent years, highlighting the underrepresentation of Black women and its negative impact on broadening participation in the field of computing. The literature reveals that several K-16 interventions have been designed to increase the representation of Black women and girls in computing. Despite these best efforts, the needle seems to have barely moved in increasing the representation or the retention of Black women in computing. Instead, the primary goals have been to recruit and retain women in the CS pipeline using gender-focused efforts intended to increase the number of women who also identify as members of racialized groups. However, these gender-focused efforts have fallen short of increasing the number of Black women in computing because they fail to acknowledge or appreciate how intersectionality (the overlapping social constructs of gender, race, ethnicity, class, etc.) has shaped the lived experiences of Black women navigating the computing pipeline. Without honest dialogue about how power operates in the field of computing, the push for racial equality and social justice in CS education remains an elusive goal. Leveraging intersectionality as a critical framework to address systemic oppression (i.e., racism, gender discrimination, power, and privilege), we interview 24 Black women in different phases of the computing pipeline about their experiences navigating the field of computing. An intersectional analysis of Black women’s experiences reveals that CS education consists of saturated sites of violence in which interconnected systems of power converge to enact oppression. Findings reveal three primary saturated sites of violence within CS education: (1) traditional K-12 classrooms; (2) predominantly White institutions; and (3) internships as supplementary learning experiences. We conclude the article with implications for how the field of CS education can begin to address racial inequality that negatively impacts Black girls and women, thus contributing to a more equitable and socially just field of study that benefits all students. 

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2. Examining the Computing Identity of High-Achieving Underserved Computing Students on the Basis of Gender, Field, and Year in School

   Garcia, A; Ross, M; Hazari, Z; Weiss, M; Christensen, K; Georgiopoulos, M. (April 2018, Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity (CoNECD))

   As technology increases in the global arena and the necessity for a more diverse group of individuals to fulfill engineering and computing roles increases, it is important to engage more students in computing majors and roles. Identity has proven to be an important lens through which researchers can better understand how to engage students in these fields. In particular, our framing for computing identity includes students’ self-perceptions about recognition, interest, and performance/competence. Using survey data, this study examines the computing identity of high achieving underserved students in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), and information technology (IT). For these students, we compare the constructs between men and women, computing fields, and freshmen and juniors/seniors. Based on preliminary data, results show that female participants had less of a computing identity than male students, specifically with respect to computing recognition and overall computing identity. Students in IT programs had less of an overall computing identity than students in CS and CE. Finally, freshmen were lower on their overall computing identities and specifically performance/competence beliefs and interest. These results suggest that even within computing programs, students differ in their computing identities. Furthermore, there are different constructs related to computing identity that vary for different subgroups of students. While these results are insightful, future work will compare the computing identities of high achieving underserved students with a larger population of computing students as well as strategies for building their computing identities. 

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3. Examining the Computing Identity of High-Achieving Underserved Computing Students on the Basis of Gender, Field, and Year in School

   Garcia, A.; Ross, M.; Hazari, Z.; Solis, T.; Weiss, M.; Christensen, K.; Georgiopoulos, M. (April 2018, The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity Conference (CoNECD))

   As technology increases in the global arena and the necessity for a more diverse group of individuals to fulfill engineering and computing roles increases, it is important to engage more students in computing majors and roles. Identity has proven to be an important lens through which researchers can better understand how to engage students in these fields. In particular, our framing for computing identity includes students’ self-perceptions about recognition, interest, and performance/competence. Using survey data, this study examines the computing identity of high achieving underserved students in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), and information technology (IT). For these students, we compare the constructs between men and women, computing fields, and freshmen and juniors/seniors. Based on preliminary data, results show that female participants had less of a computing identity than male students, specifically with respect to computing recognition and overall computing identity. Students in IT programs had less of an overall computing identity than students in CS and CE. Finally, freshmen were lower on their overall computing identities and specifically performance/competence beliefs and interest. These results suggest that even within computing programs, students differ in their computing identities. Furthermore, there are different constructs related to computing identity that vary for different subgroups of students. While these results are insightful, future work will compare the computing identities of high achieving underserved students with a larger population of computing students as well as strategies for building their computing identities. 

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4. All the Pieces Matter: The Relationship of Momentary Self-efficacy and Affective Experiences with CS1 Achievement and Interest in Computing

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469740  

   Lishinski, Alex; Rosenberg, Joshua (August 2021, Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research)

   Ko, A. K. (Ed.)

   There are significant participation gaps in computing, and the way to address these participation gaps lies not simply in getting students from underrepresented groups into a CS1 classroom, but supporting students to pursue their interest in computing further beyond CS1. There are many factors that may influence students’ pursuit of computing beyond introductory courses, including their sense that they can do what CS courses require of them (their self-efficacy) and positive emotional experiences in CS courses. When interest has been addressed in computing education, research has treated it mostly as an outcome of particular pedagogical approaches or curricula; what has not been studied is how students’ longer-term interest develops through more granular experiences that students have as they begin to engage with computing. In this paper, we present the results of a study designed to investigate how students’ interest in computing develops as a product of their momentary self-efficacy and affective experiences. Using a methodology that is relatively uncommon to computer science education—the experience sampling method, which involves frequently asking students brief, unobtrusive questions about their experiences—we surveyed CS1 students every week over the course of a semester to capture the nuances of their experiences. 74 CS1 students responded 14-18 times over the course of a semester about their self-efficacy, frustration, and situational interest. With this data, we used a multivariate, multi-level statistical model that allowed us to estimate how students’ granular, momentary experiences (measured through the experience sampling method surveys) and initial interest, self-efficacy, and self-reported gender (measured through traditional surveys) relate to their longer-term interest and achievement in the course. We found that students’ momentary experiences have a significant impact on their interest in computing and course outcomes, even controlling for the self-efficacy and interest students reported at the beginning of the semester. We also found significant gender differences in students’ momentary experiences, however, these were reduced substantially when students’ self-efficacy was added to the model, suggesting that gender gaps could instead be self-efficacy gaps. These results suggest that students’ momentary experiences in CS1, how they experience the course week to week, have an impact on their longer-term interest and learning outcomes. Furthermore, we found that male and female students reported different experiences, suggesting that improving the CS1 experiences that students have could help to close gender-related participation gaps. In all, this study shows that the granular experiences students have in CS1 matter for key outcomes of interest to computing education researchers and educators and that the experience sampling method, more common in fields adjacent to computer science education, provides one way for researchers to integrate the experiences students have into our accounts of why students become interested in computing. 

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5. Self-Efficacy Study in Computing Among College Freshmen

   Ghimire, Amrita; Lee, S.; Lineberry, L. (July 2020, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Computer Science (CS) is not introduced equitably across K-12 schools, yet it is increasingly a necessary skill regardless of vocational pathway. Co-curricular activities such as summer camps have become a popular way to introduce CS to K-12 students. Researchers at our institution, through partnerships with other educational institutions and practitioners, developed a transdisciplinary approach of teaching CS in K-12 informal learning environments. Building on positive results in the K-12 informal learning environment, researchers are exploring the applicability of the transdisciplinary modules in formal instruction for early college learners in CS0 and CS1 courses. This paper explores self-efficacy data collected from multiple CS0 and CS1 courses. Learners include freshmen in computing majors and in non-computing majors. We compare their self efficacy growth in computing across race and gender, considering their formal or informal CS education experiences prior to entering college. This work is a part of a larger effort to redesign CS0 and CS1 courses to introduce more complex concepts and important design concepts such as parallel and distributed computing earlier in the curriculum. The authors’ longer-term goal is to investigate active learning strategies that will introduce higher level computer science topics early in the curriculum to enable students to recognize content applicability earlier in their college pathway. 

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