PATHWAYS TO COMPUTER SCIENCE AT COMMUNITY COLLEGE: SINGLE MOTHERS AS RETURNING STUDENTS

Contributors

As open-access institutions serving diverse student populations, community colleges are perfect settings for broadening participation in computing efforts in higher education. The very nature of open access, however, places students with a wide variety of previous experience in the same introductory computer science classroom, intimidating the students with little programming exposure, many of whom are traditionally underrepresented in computer science. This paper reports on a pre-semester, intensive program designed to increase the computer science confidence and motivation of students with no previous programming exposure implemented at a community college in California. Framed using social cognitive career theory, results from the accompanying research project indicate preliminary success; we found the program to be well received by the majority of students, who had increased self-efficacy and interest in computer science. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Women and computing

Many conceptual models have been applied in the investigation of college retention of nursing students. We tested a model that specifies four general constructs as predictors of student success in nursing education-dispositional factors, career value factors, situational factors, and institutional factors. The purpose of this article is to describe predictors of nursing students' success, specifically: (a) What factors predict success of nursing students graduating from community colleges in California? and (b) What factors predict success of nursing students graduating on time from community colleges in California? The study design was correlational and descriptive in nature, with a convenience sample of six intervention colleges and six matched-pair control colleges. Results of the logistic regressions indicated on-time and any-time graduations were predicted by higher grade point averages in prenursing and science. Higher prenursing grades are positive predictors of graduation; improvements in performance prior to commencing nursing education should improve student success.

The purpose of this case study was to understand the experiences of women in any leadership role with Computer Science or Engineering degrees that have helped them persist and advance in their careers in the context of Silicon Valley. The "leaky pipeline" phenomenon has been described as women leaving the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) track at many stages in the pipeline (K-12, secondary, career). It has resulted in underrepresentation of women at all levels of the career ladder, specifically, for women with Computer Science and Engineering degrees in leadership positions. Using a case study research methodology, this study sought to answer this question: Why do women with Computer Science and Engineering degrees leadership positions in Silicon Valley stay in the field? Ten women in senior leadership roles in high-tech companies in Silicon Valley with at least a Bachelor's in Science degree in Computer Science or Engineering participated in the study. Women in this case study had a job title of Director or above. One-on-one interviews, a review of artifacts, and the researcher's observations of the participants during their participation in the study were analyzed. Four themes emerged from their interviews and artifact review: (a) STEM foundation, (b) grit, (c) Silicon Valley barriers, and (d) career strategies.

In 2004 African Americans (12.2% of the population) received 3.1% of the total bachelor degrees in computer science in the United States. The Technology Leadership Institute (TLI) is designed to identify the social, economic & academic barriers that inhibit these students from pursuing 4-year degrees in computer science. The goal of the TLI is to encourage students to take an interest in the computer and information sciences and to build the knowledge and skills necessary to gain admission into competitive computer science programs

Recently Published Dissertations on Community and Junior Colleges

Michael Haungs is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at California Polytechnic State University. He received his B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of California, Berkeley, his M.S. degree in Computer Science from Clemson University, and his Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of California, Davis. Over the last 8 years, Dr. Haungs has been actively involved in curriculum development and undergraduate education.

Guest Editorial

Community college counselors play an important role in supporting students’ decision-making as they navigate toward varied academic goals. Most community college students intend to transfer and thus must navigate the regulations and policies of two institutions, and many follow nonlinear enrollment patterns. Knowledgeable, personalized advising is an important resource for students in community colleges. Yet, counselors often juggle multiple roles, manage large counselor-to-student caseloads with limited resources, and must understand and meet the needs of a growing diverse student body. This study examines the factors that affect community college counselors’ ability to assist community college students in navigating multiple institutions at once while taking classes at a four-year university through a policy called cross-enrollment. To do so, we employed focus group interviews with 29 community college counselors from three community colleges in California. We found that institutional resources and support, cross-campus collaborations, counselors’ perception of the benefits and challenges associated with cross-enrollment, and counselors’ perception of the ideal cross-enrollment student were factors that affected counselors’ ability and willingness to facilitate cross-enrollment efforts. The findings suggest that improving the uptake of cross-enrolling is contingent on institutions improving their cross-institutional collaborations and providing community college counselors with adequate professional development and resources on the policy.

Critical thinking is an important outcome of a college education. Assessment techniques that require students to demonstrate their understanding of course concepts are referred to as authentic assessment and promote the development of critical thinking. Little research exists on the types of assessment and grading practices utilized by community college instructors. This research examined the incidence and nature of various assessment practices used by community college faculty for basing the course grade. In addition, the study also examined the percentage of course grades that was based on traditional and authentic assessment and factors that may influence the use of assessment techniques. To facilitate the study, an online survey instrument was used to obtain data from faculty employed at two community colleges in California. Study results revealed that a variety of assessment practices are used by community college instructors with differences in relation to faculty status, level of academic achievement, online teaching status, and years of teaching experience. In addition, findings indicate that faculty primarily use authentic assessment in basing the course grade as compared to objective or traditional assessment—suggesting that they are using assessment techniques that promote critical thinking. A significant finding was that part-time faculty emphasize objective exams, attendance, and homework whereas full-time faculty emphasize research projects and learning journals. Findings suggest that professional development may be warranted for faculty by faculty status.

Since the term “software engineering” was coined some 20+ years ago, [4] a number of definitions for both the practice and the practitioner, a “software engineer,” have been proposed. The definition from a recent report on undergraduate software engineering curricula [3] states:Software engineering entails the understanding and application of engineering principles, design skills, good management practice, computer science and mathematical formalism. …The Software Engineer must be able to estimate the cost and duration of the software development process, and to determine correctness and reliability and express them with a degree of precision meaningful to other engineers and informed clients. …In recent years, several advanced degree programs in “software engineering” have been instituted in the US and abroad. One example of this can be found at the SEI itself. Two of the goals of the SEI Education Program are to: (1) develop software engineering curriculum modules that identify, organize, and document the body of knowledge that could be taught in software engineering degree programs, and (2) design, develop, support, and maintain model curricula for undergraduate and graduate software engineering programs.The question remains, however, how much of this can be taught in a classroom setting or even in a design lab, and how much must be learned on the job or via some sort of apprentice program? What does Ada have to do with software engineering ? Can Ada exist without it? Can software engineering be done without Ada?There are those who believe the term “software engineering” is just plain wrong: [1]… I deeply resent the misuse of the word “engineering” in the compound term “software engineering.” Such misuse constitutes, in my opinion, a cheap, deceptive attempt to take advantage of the professional reputation and image developed by real engineers over a century or so … it constitutes theft of professional reputation.In 1986, I coordinated a similar panel for the ACM Computer Science Conference (CSC) [2]. The introduction from that session still holds true for this one, and is paraphrased and tuned below:Most universities prepare students for continued growth and development during a lifetime of employment, whether in an industrial or government setting. Since traditionally, such an education has implied better job opportunities, the university student believes that by studying computer science and/or software engineering, she2 will be assured of a good job at a reasonable salary performing interesting and challenging tasks.On the other hand, some universities prepare students for graduate education and research, placing a heavy emphasis on theory. From this perspective, the university student believes that upon completion of a computer science or software engineering degree, she will be able to choose where to pursue her research, at the university, industry, or government site of her choosing.Three years have passed; and I have found other group of articulate people to join us and present new and exciting viewpoints on the topic of software engineering, university education, and, of course Ada. Richard Fairley, who participated in that CSC panel, continues to represent the academic point of view; Marcia Finfer represents the industrial point of view; Garth Glynn also provides the industrial point of view with the interesting addition of evaluating graduate-level software engineering degree curricula; David Markus brings the perspective of the human resource issues; Lyn Plinta provides the view of the recent graduate dealing with veterans of the hacking era; and David Umphress represents the DoD interests.These panelists, bringing together a wealth of experience as educators, practitioners, and policy makers, provide insights from both the demand-side of software engineering and the supply-side, as they take a multi-faceted, multi-national look at industrial, academic, and government expectations of software engineering as it is taught and practiced today.

We examine factors contributing to the gender gap in employment in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) among men and women with bachelor’s degrees in computer science and engineering, the two largest and most male-dominated STEM fields. Data come from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT) from 1995 to 2008. Different factors are associated with persistence in STEM jobs among computer science and engineering degree holders. Conditional on receiving a degree in computer science, women are 14 percentage points less likely to work in STEM than their male counterparts. Controlling for demographic and family characteristics did little to change this gender gap. Women with degrees in engineering are approximately 8 percentage points less likely to work in STEM than men, although about half of this gap is explained by observed differences between men and women. We document a widening gender gap in STEM employment in computer science, but this gender gap narrows across college cohorts among those with degrees in engineering. Among recent computer science graduates, the gender gap in STEM employment for white, Hispanic, and black women relative to white men is even larger than for older graduates. Gender and race gaps in STEM employment for recent cohorts of engineering graduates are generally small, though younger Asian women and men no longer have an employment advantage relative to white men. Our results suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to increasing women’s representation in the most male-dominated STEM fields may not work.

The guided pathways reform movement promises to redesign community colleges to improve student achievement by restructuring students' journeys through an institution. As colleges implement these reforms, they must engage an overworked faculty fatigued by change initiatives that have been implemented with varying degrees of faculty participation and success. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the alignment between the strategies used to implement guided pathways-based organizational change and faculty engagement in guided pathways reform initiatives within the organizational culture of two California community colleges with the goal to understand the role of organizational culture in transformational change and identify best practices in faculty engagement. This study was guided by an overarching research question and two subquestions. The overarching research question was: How has the alignment of organizational change strategies and the organizational culture of two California community colleges selected to participate in the national implementation of guided pathways influenced faculty participation in the reforms and the success of the implementation? The subquestions were: 1. How have the community colleges involved their faculty members in the organizational change initiative? 2. How have the community colleges' organizational strategies to implement guided pathways-based change aligned with their organizational cultures? Data were collected using one-on-one, semi-structured interviews, artifact analysis, and observations. The findings derived from analysis of the two cases included: (a) the design of the implementation had a significant impact on the process, (b) cultural factors at each site strongly impacted the implementation, (c) resistance to change emerged at each campus, (d) centering of the student experience was crucial to advancing implementation, and (e) building and sustaining momentum was important for each college. The study found that both cases utilized implementation strategies for guided pathways that were congruent with their organizational cultures and encouraged faculty participation. The study confirmed that transformational change such as guided pathways that seeks to reform community colleges requires significant faculty participation and leadership to have any chance of success. Keywords: guided pathways, community college, organizational culture, organizational change, faculty

Jason Cong received his B.S. degree in computer science from Peking University in 1985, his M.S. and Ph. D. degrees in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1987 and 1990, respectively. Currently, he is a Chancellor's Professor at the UCLA Computer Science Department and the director of Center for Domain-Specific Computing (CDSC). He served as the department chair from 2005 to 2008. Dr. Cong's research interests include synthesis of VLSI circuits and systems, energy-efficient computer architectures, reconfigurable systems, nanotechnology and systems, and highly scalable algorithms. He has over 400 publications in these areas, including 10 best paper awards, and the 2011 ACM/IEEE A. Richard Newton Technical Impact Award in Electric Design Automation. He was elected to an IEEE Fellow in 2000 and ACM Fellow in 2008. He is the recipient of the 2010 IEEE Circuits and System Society Technical Achievement Award “For seminal contributions to electronic design automation, especially in FPGA synthesis, VLSI interconnect optimization, and physical design automation.”