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Investigating the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Computing Students' Sense of Belonging

Authors:

Catherine Mooney,

Brett A. BeckerAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '21: Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Pages 612 - 618

https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3432407

Published: 05 March 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Sense of belonging, or belongingness, describes how accepted one feels in their academic community and is an important factor in creating inclusive learning environments. Belongingness is influenced by many factors including: students' backgrounds and experiences; other people; environments (physical and virtual); academic discipline; external factors such as local, regional, and global issues; and time. 2020 has been dominated by several major events including the COVID-19 pandemic which dramatically impacted education. The Black Lives Matter movement has further raised global awareness of equality, diversity and inclusion not just in society, but in educational contexts. Climate change concerns, and politically-charged news are also increasingly affecting our students.

We have been monitoring our undergraduate computing students' sense of belonging for over three years, providing us with a unique opportunity to gauge recent changes during the pandemic. Our results surprised us. We found statistically significant reductions in the belongingness of students identifying as men as well as those not identifying as being part of a minority. However, investigating intersectionality of self-identified gender and minority status revealed more complicated and nuanced trends, illustrating important shifts in the belongingness of our students that we are only beginning to understand.

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Cited By

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Dornbusch MVahrenhold J(2024)"In the Beginning, I Couldn't Necessarily Do Anything With It": Links Between Compiler Error Messages and Sense of BelongingProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671105(14-26)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
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Index Terms

Investigating the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Computing Students' Sense of Belonging
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
  2. User characteristics

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE '21: Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 2021

1454 pages

ISBN:9781450380621

DOI:10.1145/3408877

General Chairs:
Mark Sherriff
University of Virginia, USA
,
Laurence D. Merkle
Air Force Institute of Technology, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Pamela Cutter
Kalamazoo College, USA
,
Alvaro Monge
California State University, Long Beach, USA
,
Judithe Sheard
Monash University, Australia

Copyright © 2021 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Published: 05 March 2021

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Cited By

Coy JLargent DMalviya S(2024)Mind the Gap: Seven Years of Freshmen Retention Data and the Impact of COVID-19 on Undergraduate Computer Science StudentsJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3715638.371566240:4(83-93)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3715638.3715662
Kularbphettong KRaksuntorn NKumchoo SBoonseng C(2024)Assessing Programming Language Teaching during COVID19 with Blended LearningProceedings of the 2024 10th International Conference on e-Society, e-Learning and e-Technologies (ICSLT)10.1145/3678610.3678614(20-24)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3678610.3678614
Dornbusch MVahrenhold J(2024)"In the Beginning, I Couldn't Necessarily Do Anything With It": Links Between Compiler Error Messages and Sense of BelongingProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671105(14-26)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671105
Mason RSimon Becker BCrick TDavenport JStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)A Global Survey of Introductory Programming CoursesProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630761(799-805)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
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Martins SMauritti RMachado B(2023)How Has the Pandemic Affected Access and the Feeling of Belonging in Portuguese Higher Education?Education Sciences10.3390/educsci1309094213:9(942)Online publication date: 16-Sep-2023
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Clamor WSaloma C(2023)Digital capital and belonging in universities: quantifying social inequalities in the PhilippinesFrontiers in Education10.3389/feduc.2023.11371218Online publication date: 27-Apr-2023
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Runa SMcCartan ABecker BMooney CChoppella VPhatak DLuxton-Reilly ACraig M(2023)Understanding a post-COVID Drop in the Belongingness of Minoritised Men in an Undergraduate Computer Science CourseProceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education Vol 210.1145/3617650.3624935(202-202)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
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Mooney CMcNeill FBecker B(2023)Evaluating the Sense of Belonging of Undergraduate Computing Students in the UK and IrelandProceedings of the 2023 Conference on United Kingdom & Ireland Computing Education Research10.1145/3610969.3611145(1-2)Online publication date: 7-Sep-2023
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Runa SAntoniadi ABecker BMooney C(2023)Student Sense of Belonging: The Role of Gender Identity and Minoritisation in Computing and Other SciencesProceedings of the 25th Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3576123.3576133(87-96)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2023
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Moya JFlatland RMatthews JWhite PHansen SEgan MDoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)"I Can Do That Too"Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569860(680-686)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
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