2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

Creating a sense of belonging early in the undergraduate experience improves retention and learning outcomes as students develop their professional identity. Much of this research has been done in STEM fields because retention statistics show that students, particularly minoritized groups, leave STEM fields like engineering and computer science at higher rates than other STEM and non-STEM disciplines. Peer-led, content-based supplemental courses have frequently been shown to improve the academic outcomes for all students and provide community for students enrolled in large introductory courses. This research builds on our recent preliminary analysis showing that students who participate in peer-led group discussion workshops run by trained peer facilitators gain greater content understanding as well as confidence and a sense of belonging. Combining the percentage of students who either agreed or strongly agreed, 90% of students in workshop courses felt respected, greater than 70% of students reported an increased sense of belonging to the University community, and more than 80% of students gained mentorship from facilitators running the workshop courses. These optimistic outcomes are an excellent starting point from which to compare data for different demographic groups enrolled in these courses. Disaggregating outcomes data based on underrepresented student identities provides information with which we can improve peer educator training to increase engagement and continue to reduce systemic inequality faced by these groups. This IRB approved research examines: 1) the relative representation of student demographic groups in peer-led workshops, 2) whether perception of belonging and mentorship in workshops are similar for students among different demographic groups, and 3) the effect of the intersection of workshop facilitators' identities and identity of students in the workshops on indicators of a sense of belonging. To examine these questions, we use University collected demographic data from enrollment, and Likert-scale data collected from mid-semester evaluations of the peer-led workshop courses for 3 semesters beginning in Spring 2022 and ending in Spring 2023. As a group, female students are overrepresented in workshops relative to the general student population. Black and Hispanic students are also overrepresented in workshops relative to the overall course population, while Asian student enrollment in workshops is slightly lower in proportion to their representation in the corresponding lecture population. When examining the disaggregated survey data some interesting trends were found with males more likely to give the highest rating to questions about the workshop courses improving confidence and that groupwork helped them learn the material better. Furthermore, we found that Hispanic students in our study were more likely to give the highest rating to their facilitators for showing concern, dividing time equitably, and providing mentorship. On the other hand, Asian students were much less likely to give the highest rating for each of those questions. Additionally, we did not find a statistically significant effect when examining the intersection of facilitator and student racial and gender identities. Overall, emergent patterns from this paper show that we are a long way towards creating inclusive learning communities that support all students across genders and ethnicities.