2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Software Guild: A Workshop to Introduce Women and Non-Binary Undergraduate Students from other Majors to Computing

Presented at Computing and Information Technology Division (CIT) Technical Session 8

It has been well established that women and non-binary individuals are minoritized in the field of computing, despite large-scale efforts to remedy this gender imbalance. In this paper, we describe our approach, which involves the creation and implementation of a week-long, extracurricular workshop called a "Guild." With our program, we aspired to introduce women and non-binary undergraduate students from other majors (e.g., biology, nursing, and business) to computing concepts. The Guild was held in the winter of 2022 at a large urban public university in the Southeast. It gave students the chance to engage in experiential software projects, community-building activities, and mentorship from computing majors and industry professionals. In our research, we applied disciplinary identity theory, with a focus on computing identity, to explore participants’ perceptions of the experiences and the impact of the Guild on their future computing aspirations. Towards this goal, we used a convergent parallel mixed-methods approach. We conducted pre- and post-workshop surveys of (n = 34) students’ impressions and goals. In the analysis, we quantitatively assessed responses around students’ computing identities and qualitatively evaluated open-ended questions about the Guild using thematic analysis. The findings demonstrated that the participants perceived the workshop as valuable and enabled them to see how computing can be a medium to solve problems of human interest as well as a tool of self-expression. In particular, participants reported that the empathetic assistance given by the peer mentors made the learning process smoother, thus making it inspiring, engaging, and less intimidating. Going forward, more experiments and fine-tuning are needed to continue to scale and improve the Guild. However, we hope the description of our workshop and findings from our investigation encourage other researchers and educators to consider similar approaches to engage women and non-binary students in computing.

Authors

Nimmi Arunachalam Florida International University [biography]

Nimmi Arunachalam is presently a Ph.D. student in the School of Universal Computing, Construction and Engineering Education (SUCCEED) program at Florida International University (FIU). She also serves as the Program Director for Break Through Tech with the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at FIU. She is interested in broadening participation in computer science for students from all backgrounds.
Dr. Mark A. Weiss Florida International University [biography]

Mark Allen Weiss is Distinguished University Professor, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in the College of Engineering and Computing, and Associate Director in the School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University
Jason Liu Florida International University [biography]

Jason Liu is the Interim Director and a University Eminent Scholar Chaired Professor at the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences, Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, Florida, USA.
Alina Melissa Perez Florida International University
Prof. Giri Narasimhan Florida International University
Stephanie Jill Lunn http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3840-1822 Florida International University [biography]

Stephanie Lunn is an Assistant Professor in the School of Universal Computing, Construction, and Engineering Education (SUCCEED) and the STEM Transformation Institute at Florida International University (FIU). She also has a secondary appointment in the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences (KFSCIS). Previously, Dr. Lunn served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, with a focus on engineering education. She earned her doctoral degree in computer science from the KFSCIS at FIU, in addition to B.S. and M.S. degrees. She also holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in neuroscience from the University of Miami. Her research interests span the fields of computing and engineering education, human-computer interaction, data science, and machine learning.

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