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1. Preparing Marginalized Students for Learning Computer Science: A Case Study of Teaching Computational Thinking to Underrepresented Middle School Youth

   Mickelson, Roslyn A; Dorodchi, Mohsen; Mikkelsen, Ian; Wiktor, Sandra; Cukic, Bojan; Petro, Caitlin; Al-Ayeisha, Zelaya; Alston, Shakayla; Teddy, Anthony; Win, Myat; et al (April 2026, Futurity Education)

   Tsekhmister, Yaroslav (Ed.)

   Many college students have neither the interest in nor the academic preparation for pursuing the study of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This is especially true for computer science (Code.org, 2021). Consequently, the U.S. likely faces a mismatch between its projected technology labor force needs and the majors of future college graduates (Justice et al., 2022; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023). A further complication of this mismatch is that the majority of U.S. students who study technology are males from middle-class White or Asian Rim ethnic (Fry et al., 2021). Lower-income youth from all race/ethnic backgrounds, females, and students from Black, Latinx, some Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI), and Native American ethnic groups are underrepresented in computer science (CS) relative to their proportion in the overall U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). This disproportionality leaves large segments of the U.S. population outside the professional computing community. Addressing the second issue could help alleviate the first problem by bringing currently marginalized segments of the population into technology fields. This article presents a descriptive case study of a three-year middle school intervention designed to improve the likelihood that more low-income, female, and racial/ethnic minoritized middle school youth will be inspired and prepared to study technology in high school enroute to pursuing technology majors in college. It describes the development, implementation, and outcomes of a partnership between the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte) and Wilson STEM Academy, a public middle school serving the underrepresented populations previously described (Mickelson, 2015). 

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2. Promoting Success Through Building Community for Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduates

   Harris, S. L.; Jiang, Y.; Clark, C.; Jorgensen, E.; Garza, T.; Marrun, N. A.; & Taylor, V. L. (June 2023, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   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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3. A Characterization of Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduate Participation in High-impact Educational Practices at Two Western Land-grant Institutions

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36557  

   Minichiello, Angela; Asghar, Muhammad; Ewumi, Ebenezer; Claiborn, Candis; Adesope, Olusola (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings)

   Currently, substantial efforts are underway to improve the engagement and retention of engineering and computer science (E/CS) students in their academic programs. Student participation in specific activities known as High Impact Educational Practices (HIP) has been shown to improve student outcomes across a variety of degree fields. Thus, we suggest that understanding how and why E/CS students, especially those from historically underrepresented groups, participate in HIP is vital for supporting efforts aimed at improving E/CS student engagement and retention. The aim of the current study is to examine the participation of E/CS undergraduates enrolled at two western land-grant institutions (both institutions are predominantly white; one is an emerging Hispanic-serving institution) across five HIEP (i.e., global learning and study aboard internships, learning communities, service and community-based learning, and undergraduate research) that are offered outside of required E/CS curricula and are widely documented in the research literature. As part of a larger study, researchers developed an online questionnaire to explore student HIP participation and then surveyed E/CS students (n = 576) across both land-grant institutions. Subsequently, researchers will use survey results to inform the development of focus groups interview protocols. Focus group interviews will be conducted with purposefully selected E/CS students who participated in the survey. Combined survey and focus group data will then be analyzed to more deeply understand why and how E/CS students participate in the HIP at their university. This research paper reports on the frequency distribution analysis of the survey data generated with E/CS undergraduates enrolled at one of the two land grant institutions. The combined sample included E/CS undergraduates from the following demographic groups: female (34 %), Asian (10 %), Black or African American (2%), Hispanic or Latinx (6%), Native American or Alaskan Native (1%), Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (1%), White (81 %), and multiracial (4 %). Results show that most (38%) E/CS students reported participating in internships, while study abroad programs garnered the smallest level of E/CS student participation (5%) across all five HIP. Internships were found most likely to engage diverse students: Female (42%), Hispanic or Latinx (24%), Multiracial (44%), Asian (31%), First-generation (29%), and nontraditional students—other than those categorized as highly nontraditional—all reported participating in internships more than any other HIP. Notable differences in participation across E/CS and demographic groups were found for other HIPs. Results further revealed that 43% of respondents did not participate in any extracurricular HIP and only 19% participated in two or more HIP. Insights derived from the survey and used to inform ongoing quantitative and qualitative analyses are discussed. Keywords: community-based learning, high impact educational practices, HIP, internships learning communities, service learning, study aboard, undergraduate research 

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4. Scaling and Diversifying Undergraduate Research with the Early Research Scholars Program

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3545947.3569621  

   Alvarado, Christine; Mirza, Diba; Revelo, Renata A.; Thota, Neena (March 2022, ACM)

   Engaging undergraduates in research has been shown to improve retention, increase students' sense of computer science identity, and increase their chances of continuing to graduate school. Yet research experiences at most universities are ad hoc, and many undergraduates-particularly those from groups underrepresented in computing-do not have the opportunity to participate. The Early Research Scholars Program (ERSP) is a structured, academic-year group-based undergraduate research program designed to help universities vastly increase participation in research for early computing undergraduates. ERSP launched at UC San Diego in 2014 where it now annually engages over 50 second-year undergraduates, 59% of whom are women, and 22% of whom are from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. The program's portable design has enabled its expansion to 7 other colleges and universities. This workshop will train participants in launching ERSP (or any part of it) at their university to increase and diversify the undergraduates participating in research. Workshop leaders are the ERSP directors at four universities. They will address how to launch and run the program in different contexts. They will provide an interactive, hands-on experience of running the program covering the following topics: developing and teaching a research methods class, student application and selection to ensure a diverse and supportive cohort, and creating a dual-mentoring structure to engage and retain early undergraduates without overburdening faculty. Workshop participants will be invited to join the ERSP virtual community to get support launching their own version of ERSP. 

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5. Math Attitudes and Identity of High Schoolers Impacted through Participating in Informal, Near-peer Mentoring

   https://doi.org/10.46328/ijres.3093  

   Wilson, Aaron T; Wang, Xiaohui; Galarza, Mayra Ortiz; Knight, John; Patiño, Eliazar (June 2023, International Journal of Research in Education and Science)

   Research in mentoring has shown that students may at times be more willing and able to absorb information that is delivered to them by their near-peers, rather than by traditional figures of authority, like teachers and professors. In this study, underrepresented minority high school students participated in an informal learning experience that was led by college students who were near-peers to the high schoolers. Students were engaged by participating in interactive MathShows, following a Math Social Media Campaign, and attending a summer Math Internship. Participants in the quantitative component of the study included N = 559 U.S. high schoolers who were from predominantly (99%) Hispanic ethnic backgrounds. The qualitative component of the study involved another 19 students from the same school. The mixed methods study addresses associations between high schoolers’ attitudes toward mathematics and their identity alignment, as well as classes of reasons that students gave for their identity alignment. Interactions with the college near-peers that occurred during the experiential learning intervention are also discussed. Results of this study address the goal of broadening participation of underrepresented student groups in STEM careers. 

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