Research indicates that Sense of Belonging - the feeling of being accepted and valued within a community - consistently correlates with student success and well-being. This experience varies across race, ethnicity, and gender, with research showing disparities among computing students, particularly those from minoritized groups. During the COVID-19 pandemic, belongingness declined among non-minoritized students but increased for minoritized women, suggesting a potential benefit of virtual environments for some groups. Post-pandemic surveys reveal that belongingness levels have not fully rebounded, especially among minoritized men, highlighting the need for targeted interventions. Since 2017, researchers at University College Dublin have studied this phenomenon and are now expanding their work across the UK, inviting collaboration through the RIPPA initiative at UKICER 2023.
This RIPPA is seeking more participants to represent additional institutions in the UK and Ireland. If you are interested, please get in touch with the RIPPA organisers: catherine.mooney@ucd.ie
Sense of Belonging, or belongingness, is an individual's personal conviction regarding their acceptance as a valued member within an academic community. The significance of student belongingness lies in its correlation with various outcomes including motivation, persistence, mental health and well-being. However, the experience of belongingness is subject to variations influenced by factors such as race/ethnicity and gender. Previous research has demonstrated notable statistical differences in the belongingness experienced by computing students who identify as women or as part of other minoritized groups.
Changes in belongingness between 2017 and 2022 have been discussed in prior work 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 . Briefly, pre-COVID, women identifying as being minoritized had the lowest belongingness of all students (statistically significant) 3, 4 . However, this increased when teaching moved online and dropped again after returning to campus 5, 6, 7 . Women who do not identify as being minoritized had very similar belongingness to non minoritized men, although they have slightly diverged recently. Most recently, and concerning, is a dramatic and statistically significant decrease in the belongingness of men who identify as minoritized (N=15, M=13, SD=36) compared to those who do not (N=30, M=41, SD=38), t(27)=2.25, p=.033 (Welch's t-test). Men cited race/ethnicity, LGBTQIA+, dis/ability, age, and socio-economic status as reasons for identifying as minoritized. A number of men identified more than one factor.
Sense of belonging was also monitored at the University of Edinburgh (UoE) during COVID and during the 2022-2023 academic year. In this case, survey questions were adapted from the student computer science attitude survey: CS principles 1 . The results are not directly comparable with those from UCD because of survey differences, but provide some similar insights into the sense of belonging of UoE students.
A survey has been adapted from the "Math Sense of Belonging Scale" 2 containing 18 positively framed questions (e.g. I feel accepted/I feel respected/etc.) and 12 negatively-framed questions (e.g. I feel excluded/I feel disregarded/etc.). All items were adapted to be preceded by "When I am in a computer science setting...". For each item, participants rated their agreement on an 8-point Likert scale (1 strongly disagree → 8 strongly agree). Belongingness was measured as the sum of positively framed question scores minus the sum of negatively-framed question scores. The goal of the RIPPA is to deploy this survey in multiple institutions across the UK and Ireland to collect a broad range of responses from multiple institutions. Participants will be required to conduct an ethical / IRB review for the data collection and then distribute their survey among CS students. Following this, we will collaboratively analyse the results to identify common themes and trends. Participants will be given the opportunity to participate in analysis and write-up for publication, as well as discussions about future work and further collaboration.