Background and context: We address the question of what computer science students take the discipline to be. How students conceive the discipline can influence whether a student pursues computer science, what particular area within computer science they focus on and whether they persist in the discipline. In this paper, we examine the epistemic…

Initiatives geared toward broadening participation in computing research have addressed the longstanding underrepresentation of various populations - including women, Black people, Latinx people, and persons with disabilities. Although there has been an increase in underrepresented populations participating in computing, building upon these…

Student identity measures in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields are a strong predictor of future persistence in those disciplines. However, there is a paucity of studies with validated measures of students' computer science (CS) identity. The aim of the present study was to assess the reliability and validity of a…

Black women remain severely underrepresented in computing despite ongoing efforts to diversify the field. Given that Black women exist at the intersection of both racial and gendered identities, tailored approaches are necessary to address the unique barriers Black women face in computing. However, it is difficult to quantitatively evaluate the…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to explore how college students from the United States describe the motivational factors that influence them to seek a degree in computer science. There is a gap in the research that shows a need to look at the motivations of women from their first experiences in computer science to begin and…

Background and Context: Computer Science has traditionally had poor student retention, especially among women. Prior work has found that student attitudes are a key factor to retention, especially with "weedout" courses such as Calculus. Objective: To determine how student attitudes towards CS 1 and Calculus change over active-learning…

Educational technologists and practitioners have made substantial strides in developing affordable digital and tangible resources to support both formal and informal computer science instruction. However, there is a lack of research on practice-based assignments, such as Internet of Things (IoT) projects, that allow undergraduate students to…

Given a myriad of recent contemporary challenges graduate students are facing as well as long-standing issues with student attrition, there is a pressing need to reexamine models of doctoral student progress. While existing research commonly examines departure or failure to meet milestones as the outcome of interest, by the time students leave…

Computer Science (CS) education is an emergent growth area in schools worldwide. This paper explores how CS education has evolved at the high school level (grades 10-12) in the Canadian province of Alberta over the past decade after a reorganization and curriculum redesign of its Computing Science Education (CSE) program. In partnership with…

Resilience is a critical personality trait that allows one to deal with difficulties, learn from failures, and maintain a positive attitude during task performance. However, it has not been understudied in a complex and challenging educational domain. The current research intends to address this gap by analyzing the specific characteristics of…

Research so far has overlooked the contribution of students' noncognitive factors to their performance in introductory programming in the context of personalized learning support. This study uses learning analytics to design and implement a Dashboard to understand the contribution of introductory programming students' learning motivation,…

This action research study investigated how a community college faculty member can improve completion rates in introductory computer science (CS1) courses. Some students think the CS1 course is challenging or non-interesting after taking the class midway and then dropping out. Others would fail the exams repeatedly. Since the exams are mostly…

This research investigates university students' success in their first programming course (CS1) in relation to their motivation, mathematical ability, programming self-efficacy, and initial goal setting. To our knowledge, these constructs have not been measured in a single study before in the Finnish context. The selection of the constructs is in…

Research has frequently demonstrated negative effects of placing students into developmental education, but very little inquiry has considered the impact of placing students into different levels of non-developmental coursework. The present study explored this issue within sequenced pairs of STEM gateway courses using doubly-robust propensity…

This study explored the learning experiences of first-year information technology students at the beginning of their studies. Identifying the early experiences is important, as we know they can predict later challenges and persistence in studies. We focus on a novel understanding of relations between learning approaches, self-efficacy and burnout…