Interest in computing related majors as grown amongst college students in the United States. Despite this growing interest, retention and graduation rates are a concern for many regional, public universities such as XYZ College. Educational researchers have demonstrated the benefits of increasing student sense of belonging (SoB) and academic self-concept (ASC) on academic outcomes. In this study, we explore the interaction between implementing collaborative learning techniques (CoLT) in a CSC 101 Introduction to Computing course with students’ SoB and ASC. Given the social constructivist perspective that frames CoLTs and these techniques’ ability to engage students authentically in course content, we hypothesize that the implementation of CoLTs will positively impact students’ SoB and ASC. At present, this study is a work-in-progress. Students in the Fall 2023 section of CSC 101 piloted a pre- and post-survey to measure their SoB and ASC.T This survey will be implemented in three sections of the CSC 101 course in Spring 2024. Additionally, students were interviewed about their experiences in the CoLT course. In this paper, overall research design, preliminary survey responses from Fall 2023, study discussion, and future work with limitations will be reviewed.
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