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(Ed.)
As open-access institutions serving diverse student populations, community
colleges are perfect settings for broadening participation in computing
efforts in higher education. The very nature of open access, however, places
students with a wide variety of previous experience in the same introductory
computer science classroom, intimidating the students with little programming
exposure, many of whom are traditionally underrepresented in computer
science. This paper reports on a pre-semester, intensive program
designed to increase the computer science confidence and motivation of
students with no previous programming exposure implemented at
a community college in California. Framed using social cognitive career
theory, results from the accompanying research project indicate preliminary
success; we found the program to be well received by the majority of
students, who had increased self-efficacy and interest in computer science.
Implications for practice and research are discussed.
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