NSF INCLUDES: Mississippi Alliance for Women in Computing (MAWC)

密西西比州计算女性联盟(MAWC)项目将确定影响和激励密西西比州女性学生和非裔女性学生注册并坚持本科工程或基于科学的计算专业的因素。特别需要方案包括来自美国南部地区的妇女和有色人种妇女。这些学生通常较少参加鼓励计算的课外活动，也不太可能将自己想象成计算机专业或职业。这项拟议的研究是为了帮助女孩们了解计算机科学的存在，以及拥有计算机科学学位的计算机科学领域有哪些工作可用。密西西比州存在着一个丰富的环境，可以建立一个专注于建立共同课程和导师机会的联盟。将开发一种可扩展到南方计算妇女联盟(SAWC)的可扩展管道模型，其主要目标有三：吸引妇女和有色人种妇女使用计算机，提高本科计算机专业女性的保留率，以及帮助中学后妇女过渡到计算机劳动力。支持这些目标的活动包括：扩大密西西比州全国妇女和信息技术抱负奖计划的规模，扩大对抱负获奖者的奖学金，扩大学生领导的计算外展计划，建立密西西比州黑人女孩代码分会，为密西西比州的计算机科学倡议提供信息并与其合作，为计算机专业的女性创建暑期桥梁和生活学习社区，以及通过会议、午餐和学习会议、工作跟踪和实习增加女性在计算机领域的专业发展机会。该项目将分析MAWC的联合课程活动是否会导致计算自我效能感，并最终导致女性学生选择追求和坚持计算机专业和职业。为了了解学生参与和效能的变化，这项研究的数据收集将通过对密西西比州一所大学本科工程或科学计算专业的女性进行人口统计和背景调查，以及在MAWC赞助的项目中进行学生调查和评估来进行。使用判别分析方法，要解决的具体研究问题是：1)哪些大学前经历影响了她们入学，2)哪些利益相关者在她们的决策过程中影响了这些女孩，以及3)什么项目有效地影响了她们在专业上的坚持性。每个研究问题的预测变量是：大学前经历、利益相关者和项目。结果变量是：(A)没有参与MAWC编程的女本科生，(B)MAWC活动参与者，或(C)MAWC参与者，拥有STEM专业学士学位？S学位。这些结果将补充已发表的关于密西西比州计算素养获得的性别和种族维度的纵向研究，以及关于有效的CS榜样编程的研究。

The Mississippi Alliance for Women in Computing (MAWC) project will identify factors that influence and motivate female students and female African American students in Mississippi to enroll and persist in an undergraduate engineering- or science-based computing major. There is a particular need for programming that is inclusive of women and women of color who are from the southern region of the United States. These students typically have less access to extracurricular activities that encourage computing, and are less likely to visualize themselves in a computing major or career. This proposed research is to help girls to know that computer science exists and what jobs in computer science are available with a degree in computer science. A rich environment exists in Mississippi for an alliance focused on building co-curricular and mentorship opportunities. A scalable pipeline model, expandable to a Southern Alliance for Women in Computing (SAWC), will be developed with three major objectives: to attract women and women of color to computing, to improve retention rates of women in undergraduate computing majors, and to help postsecondary women make the transition to the computing workforce. Activities to support these objectives include: scaling the National Center for Women and Information Technology Aspirations in Computing award program in Mississippi, expanding scholarships for Aspirations winners, expanding student-led computing outreach programs, establishing a Mississippi Black Girls Code chapter, informing and collaborating with the Computer Science for Mississippi initiative, creating a summer bridge and living-learning community for women in computing majors, and increasing professional development opportunities for women in computing through conferences, lunch and learn meetings, job shadowing, and internships. The project will analyze whether the co-curricular activities of MAWC lead to computing self-efficacy and ultimately female students selecting to pursue and persist in computing majors and careers. In order to understand student participation and efficacy changes, data collection for this research will be through demographic and background surveys administered to women entering an undergraduate engineering- or science-based computing major at a university in Mississippi and student surveys and evaluations in MAWC-sponsored programs. Using discriminate analysis methods, specific research questions to be addressed are: 1) Which pre-collegiate experiences influenced them to enroll, 2) Which stakeholders influenced these girls in their decision-making process, and 3) What programs are effective in impacting their persistence in the major. Predictor variables for each respective research question are: pre-collegiate experiences, stakeholders, and programs. Outcome variables are: (a) a female undergraduate student with no involvement with MAWC programming, (b) MAWC activity participant, or (c) a MAWC participant having graduated with a bachelor?s degree in a STEM major. Results will complement published longitudinal research on the gendered and raced dimensions of computing literacy acquisition in Mississippi as well as research on effective CS role model programming.