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Building on prior studies that show a sense of belonging and community bolster student success, we developed a pilot program for computer engineering (CpE) and computer science (CS) undergraduates and their families that focused on building a sense of belonging and community supported by co-curricular and socioeconomic scaffolding. As a dually designated Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) – two types of federally designated Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) – with 55% of our undergraduates being first-generation students, we aimed to demonstrate the importance of these principles for underrepresented and first-generation students. Using a student cohort model (for each incoming group of students) and also providing supports to build community across cohorts as well as including students’ families in their college experiences, our program aimed to increase student satisfaction and academic success. We recruited two cohorts of nine incoming students each across two years, 2019 and 2020; 69% of participants were from underrepresented racial or minority groups and 33% were women. Each participant was awarded an annual scholarship and given co-curricular support including peer and faculty mentoring, a dedicated cohort space for studying and gathering, monthly co-curricular activities, enhanced tutoring, and summer bridge and orientation programs. Students’ families were also included in the orientation and semi-annual meetings. The program has resulted in students exceeding the retention rates of their comparison groups, which were undergraduates majoring in CpE and CS who entered college in the same semester as the cohorts; first- and second-year retention rates for participants were 83% (compared to 72%) and 67% (compared to 57%). The GPAs of participants were 0.35 points higher on average than the comparison group and, most notably, participants completed 50% more credits than their comparison groups, on average. In addition, 9 of the 18 scholars (all of the students who wanted to participate) engaged in summer research or internships. In combination, the cohort building, inclusion of families, financial literacy education and support, and formal and informal peer and faculty mentoring have correlated with increased academic success. The cohorts are finishing their programs in Spring 2023 and Spring 2024, but data up to this point already show increases in GPA, course completion, and retention and graduation rates, with three students having already graduated early, within three and a half years. The findings from this study are now being used to expand the successful parts of the program and inform university initiatives, with the PI serving on campus-wide STEM pipeline committee aiming to recruit, retain, and support more STEM students at the institution.
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Evaluating a Scalable Program for Undergraduate CS Research
Undergraduate research experiences have been shown to have many positive effects on undergraduates including increased confidence, sense of belonging and retention. However, many previous studies of undergraduate research experiences have focused on advanced undergraduate (juniors and seniors) in one-on-one research experiences with a faculty mentor. Less is known about the effects of early undergraduate research, particularly via opportunities that scale beyond one-on-one faculty-student relationships to encompass large numbers of early undergraduates. The research question addressed in this work is whether a more scalable group-based research model aimed at early undergraduates from groups underrepresented in computing would show the same kinds of benefits for participants as more personalized one-on-one programs aimed at more advanced students. We evaluated a group-based early research program in the computer science department of a large public university. Through survey data and direct measurements of performance and retention several years after students had completed the program, we found that students who participated in this program have higher overall GPAs, more confidence, and more interest in research compared to several different control groups. Our design also allowed us to examine the considerable impact that selection bias can have on the evaluation of research programs. This work both validates the scalable structure of this research program and provides a richer perspective on the benefits of early undergraduate research in CS.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1821521
- PAR ID:
- 10110634
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 269 to 277
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3291279.3339406
