Author: Catherine Mooney

We (Brett Becker and Catherine Mooney) are just back from the 21st European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB), held in Sitges, Barcelona on 12-21 September 2022 (https://eccb2022.org/).

We presented a poster “Investigating Student Sense of Belonging in Biology and Computer Science” co-authored by Shamima Nasrin Runa and Anna Markella Antoniadi.

Our results showed that 75% of the women in Computer Science and 29% of the women in Biology who completed the survey identified as a minority, but for different reasons (Computer Science; Biology): gender (61%; 29%), sexual identity (17%; 29%), race/nationality (44%; 33%), disability (6%;14%), and socio-economic status (11%; 10%). These results provide insight that may help improve the SoB of our undergraduate students and ensure that we create inclusive learning environments for all students.

Read about LiSDA in the latest School of Computer Science Newsletter — CS News (page 6):
[pdf-embedder url=”https://lisda.ucd.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/UCDCSNews_2022.pdf”]

We (Brett Becker and Catherine Mooney) are just “back” from the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE TS) that was held virtually on March 13-20, 2021 (https://sigcse2021.sigcse.org/).

We presented a paper “Investigating the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Computing Students’ Sense of Belonging” which won a best paper award (https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3408877.3432407).

Student sense of belonging has been shown to be associated with many attributes such as motivation and persistence. However, sense of belonging can show variations according to factors such as race and gender. In this study, we examined the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our students’ sense of belonging .

We found that:

COVID-19 had a larger impact on the sense of belonging of all students in the space of a few months than we otherwise observed over the two prior years.

Men and women who do not identify as being part of any minority appear to have had similar downward shifts in their senses of belonging. Although in our results only men showed a statistically significant decrease, the lack of a significant difference in women is likely due to sample size.

Men who do not identify as being part of any minority saw the largest statistically significant drop in belongingness post-COVID-19.

Women who do identify as being part of a minority had a large mean increase in sense of belonging post-COVID-19 although this was not statistically significant. Again, sample size may be a factor.

This study has provided us with important insight into how a shift to online learning affected the belongingness of our students. At this point we can only conclude that these effects are real, complex, and affect individual students and groups differently – some negatively. The mechanisms of these effects are not yet understood. Solid evidence of causation is likely to take time to establish. If others have observed similar trends at different institutions, working together would likely help us understand these issues better.

— Catherine Mooney

We (Brett Becker and Catherine Mooney) are just “back” from the 2nd Annual United Kingdom & Ireland Computing Education Research (UKICER) conference, held virtually on September 3 and 4.

We presented a paper entitled “Sense of Belonging: The Intersectionality of Self-Identified Minority Status and Gender in Undergraduate Computer Science Students”.

Creating inclusive learning environments for all students is of primary importance. Student sense of belonging is an important part of this. However, sense of belonging can show variations according to factors such as ethnicity and gender as well as influencing attributes such as motivation and persistence. We utilised a survey adapted from the “Math Sense of Belonging Scale” to examine the relationship between undergraduate computer science students’ sense of belonging, gender identity, and self-declared minority status. We observed a lower sense of belonging in students who identified as women who also self-identified as being part of a minority group. However, students who identified as women who did not identify as belonging to a minority had a sense of belonging comparable to those identifying as men. Our results provide insight that may help us improve the sense of belonging of our undergraduate students, particularly those identifying as women and as belonging to a minority in computer science. It has also brought to our attention that action needs to be taken to mitigate the potentially disproportionately negative consequences that COVID-19 may have on these students due to reduced opportunities for social interaction and the negative impact that this has on sense of belonging.

— Catherine Mooney

We (Brett Becker and Catherine Mooney) are just “back” from the 25th Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE), an A-ranked conference that was held virtually on June 17 and 18.

We presented a poster entitled “Exploring Sense of Belonging in Computer Science Students” which won the best poster award. This poster, co-authored by UCD CS PhD students Anna Antoniadi and Ioannis Karvelas as well as UCD Physics PhD student Lana Salmon, explored the relationship between sense of belonging and participation in networking, outreach and mentoring activities.

Student sense of belonging has been shown to be associated with many attributes such as motivation and persistence. However, sense of belonging can show variations according to factors such as race and gender. In this study, we examined the relationship between undergraduate Computer Science students’ participation in networking, outreach, and mentoring activities and their sense of belonging. Results revealed lower levels of sense of belonging in women and self-identified minorities. However, we observed a higher sense of belonging in female students who participated in networking, outreach, and mentoring activities.

Overall these results will help us towards understanding what makes CS students feel included and what can be done to help those that don’t.

— Catherine Mooney

[pdf-embedder url=”https://lisda.ucd.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ITiCSE_2020_388.pdf”]

 

Huge congratulations to Manaz Kaleel who successfully defended his thesis at his PhD Viva Voce examination this morning.

His thesis title was “Improving Protein Structure and Subcellular Localization Prediction using Deep Learning” and the examiners were Prof Pier Luigi Martelli (University of Bologna) and Dr Vivek Nallur (UCD), and the chair was Assoc Professor Neil Hurley (UCD).

— Catherine Mooney