Examining the computing identity of high-achieving underserved computing students on the basis of gender, field, and year in school

Abstract

As technology increases in the global arena and the necessity for a more diverse group of individuals to fulfill engineering and computing roles increases, it is important to engage more students in computing majors and roles. Identity has proven to be an important lens through which researchers can better understand how to engage students in these fields. In particular, our framing for computing identity includes students' self-perceptions about recognition, interest, and performance/competence. Using survey data, this study examines the computing identity of high achieving underserved students in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), and information technology (IT). For these students, we compare the constructs between men and women, computing fields, and first year students (commonly referred to as freshmen) and post-second year students (which includes junior and senior students). Based on preliminary data, results show that female participants had less of a computing identity than male students, specifically with respect to computing recognition and overall computing identity. Students in IT programs had less of an overall computing identity than students in CS and CE. Finally, first year students were lower on their overall computing identities and specifically performance/competence beliefs and interest. These results suggest that even within computing programs, students differ in their computing identities. Furthermore, there are different constructs related to computing identity that vary for different subgroups of students. While these results are insightful, future work will compare the computing identities of high achieving underserved students with a larger population of computing students as well as strategies for building their computing identities.