2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engaging Rural America in Computer Science: Understanding the Rural Context

Presented at Computers in Education Division (COED) Track 5.A

In the United States, 1 in 5 people, approximately 66.3 million individuals, live in a rural area. To address the growing need for computing professionals and the need for a computationally literate populace, we need to engage rural learners effectively. A first step in this direction is understanding the learning context for students engaging in computer science, and how that differs for a rural population. In this paper, we draw upon the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, and the 2021 American Community Survey, to underscore a lack of access to computer science learning contexts for students in these communities. We also explore how rural out-migration is compounding this challenge, and explore the roots of the rural out-migration trend.

We then examine how multiple strains of research and scholarship identify rurality as either a place-based identification (i.e., where a student is from) or a distinct social identity. While convenient, geographic-based definitions lack important nuance in understanding rural populations and tend to emphasize heterogeneity in rural populations, especially regarding economic factors (i.e., what the communities produce). In contrast, identity-based definitions often emphasize commonalities across rural populations including a set of shared values, a sense of belonging to a rural community, emphasis on social bonds, and a distrust of solutions offered by government, academia, and technology which are often seen as misguided and antithetical to those shared values. In certain kinds of decision-making, this rural identity has even been shown to overshadow intersectional racial and ethnic identities. This is an important consideration as 22\% of the US rural population is composed of racial and ethnic minorities.

Finally, we discuss strategies to engage with rural populations authentically and meaningfully. We offer as an illustrative example our Cyber Pipeline program, an outreach effort including a Creative Commons licensed, customizable, modular curriculum; extensive teacher preparation program; and ongoing support for K-12 teachers working to bring computer science into rural schools. We also describe reasons why these rural-dwelling teachers seek to provide computer science education for their students. We highlight the specific challenges of this program, as well as our identified promising practices, in the hopes of fostering similar programs across the United States.

Authors

Dr. Nathan H Bean http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-1970-1427 Kansas State University [biography]

Dr. Nathan Bean is a Teaching Associate Professor at Kansas State University Department of Computer Science and Co-Director of the Advancing Learning and Teaching in Computer Science (ALT+CS) Lab. His research is focused on the need to grow the body of students skilled in computing – both within the field of Computer Science, and within other disciplines that increasingly rely on the tools computer science makes available to advance their own work. Thus, his research involves investigations into how to effectively reach a broader and more diverse audience of students, and developing pedagogical techniques and technologies that allow it to be done at scale.
Joshua Levi Weese Kansas State University [biography]

Dr. Josh Weese is a Teaching Assistant Professor at Kansas State University in the department of Computer Science. Dr. Weese joined K-State as faculty in the Fall of 2017. He has expertise in data science, software engineering, web technologies, computer science education research, and primary and secondary outreach programs. Dr. Weese has been a highly active member in advocating for computer science education in Kansas including PK-12 model standards in 2019 with an implementation guide the following year. Work on CS teacher endorsement standards are also being developed. Dr. Weese has developed, organized and led activities for several outreach programs for K-12 impacting well more than 4,000 students.
Russell Feldhausen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7236-3933 Kansas State University [biography]

Russell Feldhausen received a bachelor’s degree in computer science in 2008, and a master’s degree in computer science in 2018, both from Kansas State University. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in computer science with a focus on computer science education, also at K-State. Feldhausen’s research interest is computer science education, targeting rural populations and exploring ways to integrate mastery learning into CS curricula. He is also actively involved in many K-12 outreach programs providing curricula and teacher training throughout Kansas.
Dr. Michelle Friend University of Nebraska - Omaha [biography]

Dr. Michelle Friend is an Associate Professor in the Teacher Education Department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She teaches CS teaching methods and research methods. Her research focuses on equity in computer science and interdisciplinary connections between computer science and other subjects. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in Learning Science and Technology Design, and previously taught middle school computer science.
Friday Emmanuel James Kansas State University [biography]

Friday James is a PhD Candidate at Kansas State University. He has a double-majored Bachelor's degree in Statistics/Computer Science from University of Agriculture, Makurdi - Nigeria. He got a Master's degree in Statistics and a Master's degree in Computer Science from University of Ilorin - Nigeria and Kansas State University - Kansas USA in 2015 and 2021 respectively. His research interest cuts across the use of machine learning and data science in Computing Science Education to improve teaching and learning.
Dr. David S. Allen Kansas State University [biography]

David is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Kansas State University and the Director of the Center for STEAM Education. His work involves professional development for K-12 schools in STEAM related areas, and he is currently focused on on-line programing development in mathematics and computer science education.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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