Category Archive: Race/Ethnicity

A New Model for Inclusive Computer Science Education

Our post today is a guest post by Carol L. Fletcher, Ph.D., Director, Expanding Computing Education Pathways (EPIC), The University of Texas Austin. This post originally appeared in Google’s The Keyword and is reprinted with permission.

In this post, Dr. Fletcher explains the CAPE framework that she and Dr. Jayce Warner (also at the University of Texas Austin) developed. Along with several of our collaborators, our project teams at CSEdResearch.org have used CAPE to help understand how a school’s Capacity for CS education impacts who takes CS and their experiences–all with an equity lens. It has been a critical model for us, and we believe it can be a useful model for other education researchers and evaluators. We are also recipients of a 2020 Google CS-ER Award, from which Fletcher and Warner’s work is also funded.

The lack of diversity in the computing education pipeline has been a remarkably persistent problem. Something that’s stalled progress in addressing disparities is that there’s largely been a focus on individuals, such as teachers and students, rather than on how equity plays out across multiple levels of the computer science (CS) education ecosystem. This is why our work at the University of Texas since 2014 focuses on understanding the root causes of inequities in the CS education pipeline and how every level of the system influences equity.

With the support of a CS-ER (computer science education research) grant from Google, my colleague Jayce Warner and I developed a framework for thinking about equity across the CS education ecosystem. We began this work after digging into data in Texas in 2014 and finding that only about a quarter of Texas high schools offered any kind of CS course and fewer than 3% of Texas students were taking a CS course each year. The students enrolled in CS courses were also not reflective of the student population in our diverse state. We launched what became the WeTeach_CS professional development program, with the ultimate objective of seeing equitable enrollment in CS courses in Texas. To achieve this goal, we first had to improve access to CS courses and increase the number of CS-certified teachers in the state.

At the time, we thought equity had to wait until we had solved the capacity, access and participation challenges. But as we began thinking more deeply about this model and asking our colleagues in the Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) Alliance for feedback, we realized several things:

True Equity is about more than just diversity in the classroom, and just because something is available to everyone doesn’t mean that everyone can or will benefit. Also, education is very complex and the things we can easily measure (such as AP class participation) may not be the best indicators of change or success.

We developed a new framework that reflects how things connect at different levels of CS education. Most importantly, this model helps us better understand how equity plays out at each level. We’ve called it the CAPE framework and it consists of four interdependent components: capacity for CS education, access to CS education, participation in CS education and experience of CS education.

Each level affects the next. For example, if we want students to have equitable experiences in CS, we first need to make sure they’re participating equitably. Equitable participation relies on equitable access and equitable access relies on equitable capacity.

CAPE is represented as a triangle with four levels. Capacity for CS Education is the foundational level of the triangle, with access to CS education above that, participation in CS education above that, and experiences of CS education at the top. Example questions that can be asked at the Capacity level address teachers, funding and policies such as Do districts in all areas have the resources to offer CS and to train and certify teachers? Access questions deal with course offerings such as Are CS courses offered in low-income schools at similar rates to other schools? Questions at the participation level address student enrollment such as Which subgroups are underrepresented in CS courses and to what extent? Experience level questions can address student outcomes such as How does instruction and learning differ across student subgroups and do all students feel a sense of belonging in CS?

The CAPE Framework helps the entire CS education community think about the systems they work in and the types of questions they should ask to ensure equity and inclusion in computing. One example is Jackie Corricelli, a PreK-12 CS Curriculum Specialist in West Hartford Public Schools (CT), who’s used the CAPE framework to evaluate her district’s K-12 CS program. In another example, Bryan Cox, Computer Science Specialist at the Georgia Department of Education, is building a public dashboard to track access and participation in K-12 CS education in Georgia. In Texas, we’ve used CAPE to frame our state and regional CSEd Profiles and recently released a new interactive visualization to explore capacity, access and participation across the state’s 1,200 school districts and more than 2,000 high schools.

Google supported these efforts with a CS-ER grant awarded to UT Austin, which was instrumental in the development and evolution of the CAPE framework. In 2021, Google awarded seven new CS-ER grants. This year’s grant awardees are: Amy J. Ko, University of Washington; Derek Aguiar, University of Connecticut; Jean Ryoo, University of California, Los Angeles; Jennifer Parham-Mocello, Oregon State University; Joshua Childs and Tia Madkins, The University of Texas at Austin; Melanie Williamson and Audrey Brock, Bluegrass Community & Technical College; and Mounia Ziat, Bentley University.

For more information about each of the recipient’s projects, or to submit an application to be considered for future cohorts, you can visit Google Research’s Outreach page.

Computer science education still has diversity gaps

Google’s Vice President of Education and Research, Maggie Johnson, recently published this blog on the latest Gallup poll investigating diversity gaps in computer science education. We’ve reprinted this with permission. You may also access statistics from the Gallup poll here.

Jobs in the computing field are expected to grow by 13 percent between 2016 and 2026, a rate that’s faster than the average growth rate for all occupations. But the latest research shows that not all K-12 students have the same access to, or perceptions of, computer science (CS) education—especially girls and Black students. COVID-19 has only exacerbated existing gaps, underscoring the need for more creative solutions to ensure all students receive the education they deserve today to succeed tomorrow, according to additional research.

To better understand these gaps and where we can focus on finding solutions, we’re continuing our funding support of Gallup’s comprehensive, multi-year research on the K-12 computer science education landscape. Today, we’re releasing Gallup’s latest findings, “Current Perspectives and Continuing Challenges in Computer Science Education in US K-12 Schools.” This report represents Gallup’s analysis of over 7,000 interviews with U.S. educators, parents, administrators and students. It is accompanied by four supplemental reports highlighting equity gaps among different segments of the population, including Black, female, Hispanic and rural students.

The research uncovered four key themes:

1. There are still gaps in access to computer science education between Black, Hispanic and white students.

Consistent with the 2016 study, in 2020, Gallup found only 46 percent of Black students and 46 percent of Hispanic students indicate that they have classes dedicated to computer science at their high school, compared to 52 percent of white students.

2. There’s still a significant gender gap, too.

Seventy-three percent of boys say they are confident they can learn computer science, compared with 60 percent of girls, a gender gap similar to the one observed in 2016.

3. Computer science is a top priority for superintendents, but that same prioritization hasn’t made it to the classroom yet.

In 2020’s report, nearly six in 10 superintendents (58 percent) agree that computer science is currently a top priority in their districts. However, there appears to be a disconnect between administrators and teachers and principals, because just 18 percent of public school teachers and 28 percent of principals say computer science education is treated as a top priority at their schools.

4. Students are generally unconvinced that computer science is important for them to learn.

Female students are particularly skeptical about the importance of learning computer science education, with just 31 percent of them saying CS is important for them to learn, compared with 49 percent of male students.

Interventions from parents, educators, community leaders, policymakers, nonprofits and the technology industry are needed to encourage girls, Black students and Hispanic students to take computer science courses and ensure that when that interest exists, it’s matched with high quality learning opportunities. These students also need to be shown how CS knowledge can help them meet their goals in a variety of fields including the humanities, medicine and the arts.

With over $80 million in funding from Google.org, and a variety of programs as part of Code with Google, we are committed to closing equity gaps in CS education. For example, Code Next is a free computer science education program that meets Black and Latino high school students in their own communities, and Grasshopper is an app-based program for coding beginners to learn Javascript skills directly from their mobile phones and browsers. As part of our Google.org funding, we also gave a $3 million grant to The Kapor Center to establish the Equitable Computer Science Curriculum initiative. This effort brings together leaders in education equity, inclusive teaching practices and CS education, along with teachers and students to improve CS curricula and resources to increase racial and gender equity in CS classrooms.

No organization can increase access or improve perceptions of computer science education alone. We’re enthusiastic about all the work from nonprofits who have developed and share culturally-relevant learning resources, educators who support all of their students with skills they need to succeed, technology companies who have dedicated resources and governments who have created new policies to address CS learning gaps over the past five years. But we at Google believe there’s more work to be done in this complex field, and we hope publishing these reports helps the entire education community continue to advocate for and support underserved students. All of this research is fully accessible and for use in presentations.

(A virtual panel discussion was held on September 30, 12 p.m. Pacific/ 3 p.m. Eastern discussing the report’s key takeaways with Stephanie Marken, Gallup’s Executive Director of Education Research, and Dr. Alexis Martin, the Director of Research Partnerships at Kapor Center.)

Maggie Johnson is Director of Education and University Relations for Google. She manages all technical education, content development, and information management programs for Google engineers and operations staff, as well as Google’s K12 educational programs in STEM and computer science (CS).