Know your students to increase diversity: results of a study of community college women and men in computer science courses

In this paper, we report on preliminary results of an NSF-funded study of California community college students enrolled in introductory programming courses. There are several unique contributions of our study to computer science (CS) education and social science research. First, it involves large numbers of both women and men from 15 community colleges, allowing us to examine differences in gender, race/ethnicity, and other demographic variables in students’ interest and intention to persist in CS. Second, we have collected data on multiple levels of influence: individual, relational, and institutional. Third, we have collected longitudinal data that allows for measuring initial intentions, as well as how experiences in the introductory course change those intentions. We report on several factors that relate to intentions to study CS that can guide interventions to increase diversity.