Gendered Pathways: From Florida's Two-Year Institutions to Computing Degrees

这个EHR核心研究项目将对女性在计算机领域的参与进行研究，重点是社区大学的初学者，使用来自佛罗里达州教育机构的综合数据集和国家级的可比数据。尽管对计算机科学家和工程师的需求不断增长，但在这个行业中，女性的比例仍然很低，而在全国范围内，获得学位的女性所占比例也在下降。2014年是美国国家数据可查的最近一年，获得计算机科学学士学位的女性比例为18.1%，低于10年前的25.1%。虽然女性在社区学院的初学者中占大多数，而且社区学院的学生往往倾向于应用技术和高增长学位领域，但社区学院的途径作为一种提高女性在计算机和技术领域代表性的机制，一直没有得到充分的研究。新兴研究已经开始将中学、社区大学和学士学位课程作为促进科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）学生成功的工具，特别是对代表性不足的女性。该项目将通过对高度多样化的佛罗里达州社区大学计算机专业学生的分析，为学生如何成功驾驭这些职业道路提供新的见解。本研究的结果可用于后续研究和干预措施的发展，以遏制计算机领域的性别差距，特别是在代表性不足和经济上处于不利地位的妇女中。佛罗里达州行政和美国国家数据的一致性也可能对有兴趣扩大STEM高等教育参与的学术和从业者社区有意义。该项目将填补目前关于计算和技术性别差距研究的三个关键缺陷：1)它只关注计算机，目前该领域的女性人数少于其他STEM领域，且就业增长前景最好；2)由于可用的数据量，研究人员可以采用交叉方法来了解不同女性如何导航路径；3)研究人员将把重点放在社区大学的经历和途径上，这些经历和途径通常是许多代表性不足的群体进入计算机行业所选择的。研究设计利用了佛罗里达州的行政数据和现有的概念模型，即社区大学生成功框架的动力，以跟踪追求计算机学位的社区大学生的不同人群。该数据集包括高等教育成绩单数据，以及人口、家庭背景和学术历史的多层测量，特别是在高中数学和科学课程中。管理数据集提供了巨大的统计力量的优势，促进了细致入微的特定领域和交叉分析，同时也检查了中学和高等教育课程的学习经历和结果在高等教育课程入学时间和一致性方面的差异。为了将佛罗里达州的研究结果置于背景中，研究人员还将利用两个最新的初级高等教育学生研究数据，对美国国家纵向数据进行补充分析。三种类型的结果将被分析关于高等教育成就的结果：1)获得计算机相关领域的副学士学位；2)从两年制大学转入四年制大学计算机相关专业；3)取得计算机相关专业的学士学位。研究小组将使用多元统计分析和准实验设计来比较计算机领域与其他STEM领域相比，男性和女性毕业的概率。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This EHR Core Research project will conduct research on women's participation in computing fields, with a focus on community college starters using a comprehensive dataset from Florida's educational institutions and national-level comparable data. Despite the growing demand for computer scientists and engineers, women's representation in this industry remains problematically low while their share of degree earners has declined nationally. In 2014, the most recent year for which U.S. national data are available, the share of women earning bachelor's degrees in computer science was 18.1%, down from 25.1% a decade earlier. Although women constitute the majority of community college starters, and community college students often gravitate towards applied technical and high-growth degree fields, community college pathways have been under-examined as a mechanism for enhancing women's representation in computing and technology. Emerging research has begun to identify secondary school, community college, and baccalaureate curricular pathways as a vehicle to facilitate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) student success, especially for underrepresented women. This project will provide new insights into how students successfully navigate these career pathways by focusing on analyses of community college students in computing in the highly diverse state of Florida. The findings from this study may be used in subsequent research and in the development of interventions to curb the gender gap in computing fields, especially among underrepresented and economically disadvantaged women. The alignment of Florida administrative and U.S. national data may also have meaningful use for scholarly and practitioner communities interested in broadening participation in STEM higher education.This project will fill three critical shortcomings of current research on the gender gap in computing and technology: 1) it focuses solely on computing, which currently has fewer women than other STEM fields and has the most prospects for job growth; 2) because of the amount of data available, the researchers can employ an intersectional approach to understand how various women navigate pathways; and 3) the researchers will focus on the community college experiences and pathways often chosen by many underrepresented groups to enter computing. The research design leverages Florida administrative data and an existing conceptual model, the Momentum for Community College Student Success framework, to follow a diverse population of community college students pursuing computing degrees. The dataset includes postsecondary transcript data coupled with multilayered measures of demographic and family backgrounds and academic history, particularly in high school mathematics and science courses. Administrative datasets offer the advantage of vast statistical power that facilitates nuanced field-specific and intersectional analyses while also examining the differences in the secondary and postsecondary course-taking experiences and outcomes with respect to the timing and consistency of enrollment in postsecondary programs. To contextualize Florida findings, the researchers will also engage in complementary analyses of U.S. national longitudinal data, using the two most recent cohorts of Beginning Postsecondary Students study data. Three types of outcomes will be analyzed with respect to postsecondary attainment outcomes: 1) Attainment of an associate degree in computing-related fields; 2) Transfer to computing related major from a two-year institution to a four-year institution; and 3) Attainment of a bachelor's degree in computing-related fields. The investigator team will use multivariate statistical analyses and quasi-experimental designs to compare the probabilities for men and women graduating with degrees in computing fields as compared to other STEM fields.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.