Events

The Problem

My research seeks to identify ways to recruit a broader variety of students to informal computer science (CS) learning programs like summer camps, after school clubs, and hackathons. CS is not diverse. Women, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, people with low socioeconomic status (SES), and people with disabilities are not represented. Informal CS learning programs like summer camps, after school clubs, and hackathons have been shown to increase interest in students not normally represented in CS. However, informal CS learning programs are still struggling on getting these students to attend their programs.

What We Did

We aimed to understand this challenge by investigating the kinds recruiting practices 14 informal CS learning programs use across a diverse region in the Western United States. We used a cultural competent lens (i.e. a lens that outlines practices, behaviors, and policies that enable programs to serve and value different cultures) to look at the variation within recruiting practices to determine how differences in the implementation of practices could be influencing the diversity of students who participate. By gaining an understanding of how informal CS learning programs implement their recruiting practices we will learn how to recruit students with diversity and equity in mind. 

We collected and analyzed the 14 interview transcripts in order to answer our first research question, what recruiting practices are informal CS learning programs using? When answering our second research question, what is the cultural competency of these recruiting practices? We used the cultural competency lens as a framework to categorize our data. We categorize the data by following the definitions laid out by Cross et al. There are five elements to cultural competence and they are: valuing diversity, cultural self-assessment, dynamics of difference, institutionalization of cultural knowledge, and adaptation to diversity. Then, there are six points on the cultural competence continuum. From the lowest point to the highest point they are: cultural destructiveness, cultural incapacity, cultural blindness, cultural pre-competence, cultural competence, and cultural proficiency. 

The Results

We found 20 different recruiting practices that informal CS programs used. Some of which include: providing hardware, financial aid, free programs, girls only courses, and using social media, public events, mailing lists, flyers, and independent partners. The interesting thing is that most of the programs used the same recruitment practices, but they used them in different ways and for different reasons. We found that the the reasons behind why programs use practices seemed to influence the diversity of students they served. The implications of understanding how to recruit students with diversity and equity in mind introduces the possibility of creating a more diverse CS environment. This has been sought for the past two decades. Through this research, we hope to create better access to CS programs to all community members.