Can sending first and second year computing students to technical conferences help retention?

This research examines the relationship between undergraduate computing students’ participation in technical conferences and psychological predictors of academic persistence. Studies have shown experiential educational activities, like conferences, encourage students’ persistence in STEM; this is especially important for students underrepresented in the field, who are more likely than their well-represented peers to leave their degree programs. In recent years, academic literature has pointed to anecdotal evidence that conference participation for students early in their undergraduate education relates to students’ persistence in STEM pathways. Using national survey data, we examine the relationship between conference participation and first and second year undergraduate students’ persistence in computer science pathways. This paper presents results from a cross-sectional analysis and a two time-point analysis of national survey data collected from undergraduate students. Overall, we found that first and second year computing majors who attended a technical computing conference reported higher levels of belonging to their field and confidence to persist in their degree program than those who did not attend. We also found that conference participants’ levels of belonging and self-confidence is higher than non-participants over time, even after controlling for initial levels at Time 1. Our analyses also showed that conference participation was associated with closing the gap in levels of belonging and self-confidence between students who are underrepresented in computing and those who are well-represented. Empirical results from this paper support anecdotal evidence that conference participation for students early in their undergraduate education may help retain students, and particularly underrepresented students, in computing majors in the long-term.