sigcse 2008 presentation

A Case Study of Retention Practices at the University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignTanya L. Crenshaw, Erin Wolf Chambers and Umesh ThakkarUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Heather MetcalfUniversity of Arizona

Presented at SIGCSE 2008 | March 15th, 2008

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Hi. My name is Tanya.

This is the web version of the presentation I gave at SIGCSE 2008 in Portland, Oregon.

This is one of my co-authors:Erin Wolf Chambers.She studies computational geometry.

She investigates the properties of geometrical surfaces, with applications to networking and graphics.

The Stanford Bunny and Dragon appear with permission from Stanford’s 3D Scanning Repository

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This is another co-author:Heather Metcalf

Her body of work includes: Human Computer Interaction, Gender Studies, and Higher Education Policy.

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Heather has studied low-fidelity prototyping, and multiple display environments.

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She merges theories from gender studies and human computer interaction to research gender bias in the design of computer interfaces.

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Heather also runs marathons.

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This is my third co-author:Umesh Thakkar

He investigates Cyber Learning and GraduateEducation.

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This includes teaching middle school students about virtual reality.

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Umesh also runs marathons.

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Among the four of us, our work spans a lotof really cool opportunities in computer science.

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And yet...enrollment in computer science isdeclining.

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And the faces of computer scientists don’t reflect the faces of our global community.

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And I’ve watched my own friends drop outof graduate school.

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So the four of us did a study of UIUC’s CS department.

We wanted to know how we could improveretention of students...

both undergrad and grad.

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Over 10 months, we surveyed 119 students; we interviewed 20 students. And we learnedsomething:

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To increase retention, we must increase positive interaction.

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This talk is about two of our results.

Community Identity: how students identify with the norms of their surrounding community.

We learned that we need to close the gap between the perception and reality of computer scientists.

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Community Relationships: how students are connected to their community via community members.

We learned that UIUC needs better mentoring relationships and networking contacts for students to reach their academic and professional goals.

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At the time of our study, this is what UIUC’s Dept.of CS student population looked like:

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Undergraduates Graduates

Total.............................Female........................African American....Latino/a......................International.............

7349.0%1.5%3.8%

10.4%

Total.............................Female........................African American....Latino/a......................International.............

38614.8%

0.5%1.3%

45.3%

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multiple choicequestions

short answerquestions

60 minuteinterviews

Undergraduates Graduates

We used a mixed methodology: survey questions, some short-answer, supplemented by interviews to expand on survey questions.

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We conducted our study in two phases.

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Pilot study. We interviewed four undergraduates and seven graduates hand-picked for breadth of experience.

We wanted to know what they would ask if they were to do a study.

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Second phase. We surveyed on-line 61 undergraduates and 58 graduates. Surveys were supplemented by nine interviews.

Our participants were 17% female and 83% male.

We announced the study to all-female cs groups in the department 1 week before announcing it to everyone else.

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We conducted our study under Institutional Review Board project #06290.

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Community Identity

We wanted to know if students felt likethey identified with their computer sciencecommunity at UIUC.

So we asked them questions like:

1. How much do you agree: I fit in at UIUC Department of Computer Science?

2. How does your role as a computer scientist affect your own masculinity and/or femininity?

3. Do you think you are a typical computer scientist? Why or why not?

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1. How much do you agree: I fit in at UIUC Department of Computer Science?

2. How does your role as a computer scientist affect your own masculinity and/or femininity?

3. Do you think you are a typical computer scientist? Why or why not?

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When we asked them question 3, we did notdefine “typical.” We wanted to know how theydefined it for themselves.

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Across the board, about 30% did not feel typical.

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0102030405060 No

SomewhatYes

“Are you a typical computer scientist?”

%

Graduate(58)

Undergraduate(61)

Female(28)

Male(91)

Total(119)

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Not just the women. Across the board.

Look again.

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0102030405060 No

SomewhatYes

“Are you a typical computer scientist?”

%

Graduate(58)

Undergraduate(61)

Female(28)

Male(91)

Total(119)

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We asked them why not. Some said it wasbecause of how they looked or what they did.

“Are you a typical computer scientist?”

“No. I’ve noticed a lot of the people in the major don’t look like me and I’m not particularly enjoying the major at that.”

--male undergraduate

“No. I’m more of a jack of all trades. I like computer science, but my life doesn’t completely revolve around it. I write; I read; I make music; I cook.”

--male graduate

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Some said it was because of what they studied.

“Are you a typical computer scientist?”

“No, because I do not enjoy the low level intricacies of computer systems. I am more interested in building computer tools that have a direct impact on human life...”

--female graduate

“No. I think we theoreticians are far too ‘math’ to be typical.”

--female graduate

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Community Relationships.

We also wanted to know if students interact with those who can help them become members of the community.

So we asked them questions like:

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1. Do you have a mentor?2. Who is your mentor?3. How easy or difficult was it for you to

get an advisor?

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Total(119)

0

20

40

60

80

100

I do not want one

No

Yes

Undergraduates(61)

Graduates(58)

% “Do you have a mentor?”

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We admit it. Not everyone wants a mentor.

But 52% of undergraduates and 26% of graduates who did not have a mentor would like to have one.

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So we asked them why they didn’t have one.

“Why don’t you have a mentor?”

“I think I know who I would ask. I feel sort of stupid going up to her and say, I feel I need a mentor, would you be willing?...There is no formal system, which is unfortunate”

--post-qual graduate student

“The last thing the faculty cares about is chatting about my problems. No one would be interested in mentoring me. People here just care about great research, not about mentoring.”

--pre-qual graduate student

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We also asked about sources of mentors.

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Undergraduates(61)

0102030405060708090

%

0102030405060708090

%

My advisor.

A student in the department.

“Who is your mentor?(check all that apply)”

A faculty member in the department

A faculty member outside the department.

Other.

A student outside the department.

I do not have one.

53 Graduates(58)

Undergraduates(61)

0102030405060708090

%

0102030405060708090

%

My advisor.

A student in the department.

“Who is your mentor?(check all that apply)”

A faculty member in the department

A faculty member outside the department.

Other.

A student outside the department.

I do not have one.

Only 11 out of 61 undergraduates reported

having a mentor.

54 Graduates(58)

Undergraduates(61)

0102030405060708090

%

0102030405060708090

%

My advisor.

A student in the department.

“Who is your mentor?(check all that apply)”

A faculty member in the department

A faculty member outside the department.

Other.

A student outside the department.

I do not have one.

ouch.

Graduates(58)

Undergraduates(61)

0102030405060708090

%

0102030405060708090

%

My advisor.

A student in the department.

“Who is your mentor?(check all that apply)”

A faculty member in the department

A faculty member outside the department.

Other.

A student outside the department.

I do not have one.

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We noticed that manygraduates had advisors.

And yet...

Graduates(58)

Undergraduates(61)

0102030405060708090

%

0102030405060708090

%

My advisor.

A student in the department.

“Who is your mentor?(check all that apply)”

A faculty member in the department

A faculty member outside the department.

Other.

A student outside the department.

I do not have one.

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Only 49% of graduate students with an advisor

regarded their advisor as their mentor.

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So we asked them why they did not considertheir advisor their mentor.

“Why don’t you consider your advisor your mentor?”

“My advisor is only in her thirties. It's not like she's 60 with lots of experiences. When I think of a mentor, I think of some old guy who can pull strings for you to get a job.”

--pre-qual graduate student

“That one conference that I went to, [my advisor] wasn't there. I listened to people's talks, but I couldn't make any connections.”

--post-prelim graduate student

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Based on these results, UIUC is trying to put some retention improvements into place.

In an open-ended question, many participants cited increasing student-professor interactions as a way to improve the department:

• undergraduates: 24%• graduates: 31%

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Increasing positive interactions lets students meet other people in the community.

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They meet people who are similar and people who are different.

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They identify more with the norms of the community and expand their definition of computer science.

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At UIUC, the undergrads organize an annualevent called “Casino Night.”

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Professors, staff, and members of industry arethe dealers. Students gamble for prizes.

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That’s Jeff Erickson dealing black jack.

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Casino night is cool because students get tointeract with professors in an informal environment.

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It’s only once a year, though. UIUC needs more cool events like these. But UIUC can’t rely entirely on undergraduates to organize them.

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There are other things that can be done toincrease positive interactions.

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One idea is to create multiple, diverse mentoring programs.

One example is at the University of Southern California, Dept. of Mathematics.

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Incoming undergraduates and graduates are assigned a “mentoring triplet.”

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That’s one freshman, one grad student, and one professor who have lunch about once a month.

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It’s cool, because people who wouldn’t normally meet are interacting with each other in an informal environment.

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UIUC is trying something similar. Incoming freshman are now assigned mentors from a pool of UIUC alumni

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Another idea for providing diverse mentoring opportunities is to harness existing social networks.

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Many UIUC graduate students have signed up to this Facebook group. This lets other students know they are interested in mentoring

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We still have a lot of work to do to improve retention.

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We want to repeat the study at UIUC in a couple of years, after these changes have been put into place.

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We also want to repeat the study at other institutions and see how retentions issues compare across universities, big and small.

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If you want to give us feedback on this work, go to my website:

http://www.kaju.dreamhosters.com

Click on the “blog” tab and leave a comment on the SIGCSE 2008 entry.

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Or you can just send me e-mail at:

tanya.crenshaw@gmail.com

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Thanks.