Project Overview
Having reliable information on which to base their student retention and recruitment efforts would enable CS programs to use resources wisely. Unfortunately, general recruitement and retention information in CS is almost non-existent. Decisions concerning techniques used in recruitment and retention are based on three sources: research on recruitment and retention in the sciences in general, research on recruitment and retention in CS in special populations such as women and minorities, and anecdotal information.
Basing recruitment and retention efforts on the existing materials is problematic, as illustrated by the contrast between the growing diversity in most sciences and the lack of progress in CS. Anecdotal evidence is also problematic. As context is not given for the evidence, how one instructor's experiences relate to another instructor's situation is unknown. For example, CS1 and CS2 are a major current focus within the CS education community, in part due to the fact that most students who leave CS programs leave in the first two years. Our research shows major drawbacks to CS1 and CS2 as a point of intervention, deriving from structural issues within public higher education.
We believe that constructing practical, effective recruitment and retention interventions in CS will require intimate knowledge of the CS educational process combined with rigorous educational research design to take advantage of that knowledge. Unfortunately, few CS faculty have expertise in education research, as CS education is not a well-respected specialty: neither IEEE nor ACM have a refereed journal dedicated to Computer Science education.
Recent academic years have seen declining applications to and enrollments in many CS programs, providing a window of opportunity to reach out to faculty not normally concerned with recruitment and retention research. At the same time, teaching faculty are under ever-increasing pressure to do some research in many institutions. A review of recent faculty development offerings within the California State University (CSU) system and beyond demonstrated a current interest in classroom-based research, at least partially as a result of the potential for leveraging teaching time. Retention and recruitment of students is a vital area of expertise for any academic program, and a natural research focus for CS educators.
After analyzing both problem and opportunity, we decided to work to foster a community of educational researchers, CS education research faculty, and CS teaching faculty to address the problem of recruitment and retention in CS.