Background: Despite the vital function of engineering and computer science (Eng & CS) to innovation and economic development, retention within Eng & CS programs remains a major challenge in the U.S. educational system. Despite extensive research on influential factors of retention, there is a gap in our understanding of how these factors…

Objectives: Although prior research has uncovered shifts in computer science (CS) students' implicit beliefs about the nature of their intelligence across time, little research has investigated the factors contributing to these changes. To address this gap, two studies were conducted in which the relationship between ineffective self-regulation of…

Students want to learn computer science due to its usefulness for future careers, however they often meet challenges in introductory courses. In the increasingly digital world, it is important to understand some important psychological consequences of such challenges: perceived costs of pursuing computer science. This study thus investigated…

Despite efforts to increase representation among those enrolled, earning degrees, and working in the computing and technology industry, women across races/ethnicities and People of Color more broadly remain underrepresented in the field. Fortunately, extant literature has found that psychosocial factors like computing identity can help broaden…

It is very important to identify talented students as soon as they are admitted to college so that appropriate resources are provided and allocated to them to optimize and excel in their education. Currently, this process is labor-intensive and time-consuming, as it involves manual reviews of each student's academic record. This raises the…

To address the demand for engineers and computer scientists in the workforce, and the fact that some engineering students dropout or change majors, we explored how the motivational climate in an undergraduate computer science (CS) course was related to students' motivational beliefs and academic and career goals. Participants included 310 students…

Supporting upward transfer students is critical to diversifying STEM. This study provides insight into how we can best support upward transfer students in computing, one of the least diverse STEM disciplines. Specifically, we expand upon recent research on sense of belonging to examine how the predictors of belonging might be unique for upward…

Programming education consistently faces challenges in bridging theory with practice and fostering students' cognitive competencies. This 12-year longitudinal study (2011-2023) investigates an innovative competency-based teaching model in university C programming education that integrates six educational theories into a coherent framework with…

Contribution: This study applies supervised and unsupervised machine learning (ML) techniques to discover which significant attributes that a successful learner often demonstrated in a computer course. Background: Students often experienced difficulties in learning an introduction to computers course. This research attempts to investigate how…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pre-enrollment attributes of first-year students at Computer Science BSc programs of the University of Miskolc, Hungary in order to find those that mostly contribute to failure on the Programming Basics first-semester course and, consequently to dropout. Our aim is to detect at-risk students early,…

Background and Context: As computing fields aim to both expand and diversify, narrowing representation gaps in undergraduate computing majors requires focus on retaining women and racially/ethnically minoritized students to the point of degree attainment. Objective: This study addresses the factors that contribute to persistence in computing…

Given the significant need to increase and diversify graduate enrollments within computing fields, it is vital to understand what shapes students' pathways to computing graduate school. This study examines the predictors of undergraduate students' self-confidence in being admitted to computing graduate school among students who enrolled in an…

To cultivate more computing talent (including more diverse talent), it is important to understand how college students experience their computing courses and if such experiences vary based on students' gender and racial/ethnic identities. In this paper, we focus on course modality to understand whether taking courses in-person, online, or a hybrid…

The rise in demand for computer programming jobs has created a significant need for computer programming training. Online learning can be an effective tool for meeting the needs of these job demands. The challenge for universities is that computer programming is perceived as a difficult course by many students (Askar & Davenport, 2009; Baser,…

The purposes of the two studies reported in this research are to adapt and validate the instrument of the Evaluation Framework for Learning Analytics (EFLA) for learners into the Turkish context, and to examine how metacognitive and behavioral factors predict learner performance. Study 1 was conducted with 83 online learners enrolled in a 16-week…