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Students’ engagement with geographic information systems (GIS) can improve spatial skills, which are predictors of STEM success (Jant et al., 2019). We used a survey motivated by Eccles’s (2009) expectancy-value-cost framework to assess students’ perceptions of their computer science (CS) courses before and after participation in a GIS unit. The unit provided opportunities to apply GIS to inquiry-based projects focused on solving problems in their own communities. Across four teachers, 158 students participated in the GIS unit and completed the survey. We found that students’ reports of classroom equity predicted their expectancy for success in CS and their desire to take additional CS courses or major in CS. We also examined students’ performance on a geospatial problem-solving assessment to investigate their understanding of GIS and their spatial reasoning.
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This content will become publicly available on February 12, 2026
Understanding the Prevalence of a Microaggression in CS and its Influence on Students' Self-Efficacy, Belonging, and Persistence
Students from historically underrepresented communities in computer science (CS) report being told that their successes are due to special treatment based on their gender and/or racial identity. We refer to this microaggression as the discounting-success microaggression. We analyzed survey responses from 4,327 CS majors across 221 institutions in the U.S. We found that students who identify as women, Black, and/or Asian were more likely than men and white students, respectively, to report the discounting-success microaggression. This discounting-success microaggression significantly and negatively predicts students’ self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and plans to persist in CS. Our results elucidate the negative influence of the discounting-success microaggression on CS student outcomes. Efforts are needed to improve the culture and interactions in CS to eliminate the prevalence of this harmful microaggression.
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- PAR ID:
- 10584089
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 903 to 909
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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