Blogs (4) >>
Fri 22 Mar 2024 11:35 - 12:00 at Meeting Room D135 - Persistence in CS and Retention Chair(s): Jennifer Wong-Ma

Prior work has found that women tend to report lower sense of belonging compared to men in STEM and computing contexts, which may discourage women’s persistence. Collaborative learning has been shown to improve students’ sense of belonging in some STEM and computing courses relative to traditional lecturing; however, these studies tend to focus on a single course or the first implementation of such pedagogical changes. Our study explores whether these trends generalize by measuring students’ sense of belonging across three non-introductory computing courses that have consistently used collaborative learning activities over three semesters. We ask the following research question: Is collaborative learning generally associated with an increased sense of belonging, especially for women? We found that while there were variations across courses, students’ reported sense of belonging improved in all courses. Notably, women’s reported sense of belonging improved 43% more than men’s in the study. Our findings complement prior studies by providing evidence of a relationship between increased sense of belonging and collaborative learning, and suggest students’ sense of belonging is malleable beyond the first year. These findings challenge critiques of past studies as being isolated to single courses or conducted only immediately after an effort to change a course, suggesting pedagogical changes may hold promise in improving students’ affective outcomes.

Fri 22 Mar

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10:45 - 12:00
Persistence in CS and RetentionPapers at Meeting Room D135
Chair(s): Jennifer Wong-Ma University of California, Irvine
10:45
25m
Talk
What factors influence persistence in project-based programming courses at community colleges?
Papers
Chris Bogart Carnegie Mellon University, Marshall An Carnegie Mellon University, Eric Keylor Carnegie Mellon University, Pawanjeet Singh Carnegie Mellon University, Jaromir Savelka Carnegie Mellon University, Majd Sakr Carnegie Mellon University
DOI
11:10
25m
Talk
A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship between Early Undergraduate Research and Academic Outcomes in Computer Science
Papers
Kamen Redfield University of California, San Diego, Sukham Sidhu University of California, San Diego, Zackary Glazewski University of California, Santa Barbara, Cynthia Lee Stanford University, Diba Mirza University of California Santa Barbara, Christine Alvarado University of California San Diego
DOI
11:35
25m
Talk
Exploring Computing Students' Sense of Belonging Before and After a Collaborative Learning Course
Papers
Morgan Fong University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Shan Huang University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Abdussalam Alawini University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Mariana Silva University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Geoffrey Herman University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
DOI