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Investigating the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Computing Students' Sense of Belonging
Author(s)
Date Issued
2021-03-20
Date Available
2021-07-12T14:01:55Z
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.
Type of Material
Conference Publication
Publisher
ACM
Copyright (Published Version)
2021 the Authors
Web versions
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
Part of
Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
Conference Details
The 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '21), Online Event, 13-20 March 2021
ISBN
978-1-4503-8062-1
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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