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Community College Pathways to Computing (CCPC)

Project (NSF ECR grant #19-20670, 2019-2022)

In 2013, the Florida legislature drastically restructured developmental education placement and instruction through Senate Bill 1720. The new law mandates that the 28 state colleges (formerly the community colleges) in the Florida College System (FCS) provide developmental education that is more tailored to the needs of students. This law gives students much more flexibility in deciding whether they need developmental education and how they can go about receiving developmental education instruction. For many students, developmental education and placement tests are now optional regardless of prior academic preparation. In addition, developmental education must now be delivered through a variety of accelerated and co-requisite strategies. The legislation does not mandate the specific programmatic details around each option (it only requires that each option be provided), and therefore allows the individual campuses in the FCS some flexibility in the form and delivery of each option.

Lara and Shouping

Investigator Team: Dr. Lara Perez-Felkner and Dr. Shouping Hu

Lara and GAs

Dr. Lara Perez-Felkner and Graduate Assistants

 

Meet the Team

Dr. Lara Perez-Felkner, Principal Investigator and Associate Professor of Higher Education and Sociology

Dr. Shouping Hu, Co-Principal Investigator and Louis W. and Elizabeth N. Bender Endowed Professor of Higher Education

Jinjushang (Chena) Chen, Ph.D. Candidate in Educational Psychology

Kristen Erichsen, Graduate Research Assistant, Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology

Teng Zhao, Graduate Research Assistant, Ph.D. Candidate in Higher Education

Yang Li, Graduate Research Intern, Ph.D. Student in Higher Education

Advisory Board to Enhance Rigor and Impact

We draw on both a Technical Advisory Board and Broader Impacts Advisory Board given the importance of research informed by policy and practice and designed to generate results, which can contribute to broadening participation in computing and science and technology more broadly, in Florida, the U.S., and beyond.

News and Relevant Links

  • Florida State University news coverage of our work includes radio and TV features on why community college women’s access to computing fields matters.
  • Upcoming paper sessions scheduled at AERA 2020, ASEE 2020

Contact us for more information or to subscribe to our project newsletter

Associated Recent Publications, with * denoting funding support from NSF computing project and ^ denoting past NSF funding support.

^ Perez-Felkner, L., Felkner, J., Nix, S., & Magalhães, M. (2020). The Puzzling Relationship between International Development and Gender Equity: The Case of STEM Postsecondary Education in Cambodia. International Journal of Educational Development 72(1) 1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2019.102102 See related translational article in Elsevier Connect.

^ Nix, S., & Perez-Felkner, L. (2019). Difficulty orientations, gender, and race/ethnicity: An intersectional analysis of pathways to STEM degrees. Social Sciences, 8(2), 1-29. doi: 10.3390/socsci8020043. See also video abstract: https://youtu.be/w-2QEoJjKDE

^ Perez-Felkner, L., Thomas, K., Nix, S., Hopkins, J., & D’Sa, M. (2019). Are 2-Year Colleges the Key? Institutional Variation and the Gender Gap in Undergraduate STEM Degrees. Journal of Higher Education. 90(2), 181-209. doi: 10.1080/00221546.2018.1486641

Perez-Felkner, L., Gaston Gayles, J. (Eds.) (2018). Special Issue: Advancing Higher Education Research on Undergraduate Women in STEM. New Directions for Institutional Research, vol. 179, pp. 1-137.

Perez-Felkner, L., Gaston Gayles, J. (2018). Editor’s Notes. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2018(179): 7-9.

Perez-Felkner, L. (2018). Conceptualizing the field: Higher education research on the STEM gender gap. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2018(179): 11-26. doi: 10.1002/ir.20273

Šaras, E., Perez-Felkner, L., & Nix, S. (2018).  Warming the Chill: Insights for Institutions and Researchers to Keep Women in STEM. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2018(179): 115-137. doi:10.1002/ir.20278

^ Milesi, C., Perez-Felkner, L., Brown, K, & Schneider, B. (2017). Engagement, Persistence, and Gender in Computer Science: Results of a Smartphone ESM Study. Frontiers in Psychology. 8(602). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00602

^ Perez-Felkner, L., Nix, S., & Thomas, K. (2017). Gendered Pathways: How Mathematics Ability Beliefs Shape Secondary and Postsecondary Course and Degree Field Choices. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(386). doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00386 See related press.

^ Schneider, B., Milesi, C., Perez-Felkner, L., Brown, K., & Gutin, I. (2015). Does the gender gap in STEM majors vary by field and institutional selectivity? Teachers College Record. See associated poster.

^ Nix, S., Perez-Felkner, L. C., & Thomas, K. (2015). Perceived mathematical ability under challenge: A longitudinal perspective on sex segregation among STEM degree fields. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(530), 1-19. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00530. See related press.

^ Perez-Felkner, L., McDonald, S.-K., & Schneider, B. L. (2014). What happens to high-achieving females after high school? Gender and persistence on the postsecondary STEM pipeline. In I. Schoon & J. S. Eccles (Eds.), Gender differences in aspirations and attainment: A life course perspective (pp. 285-320). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139128933.018 Read and download here.

Perez-Felkner, L., McDonald, S.-K., Schneider, B., & Grogan, E. (2012). Female and Male Adolescents’ Subjective Orientations to Mathematics and Their Influence on Postsecondary Majors. Developmental Psychology, 48(6), 1658–1673. See also APA link. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0027020