Expanding Opportunities through Concurrent Enrollment

Abstract

Efforts to broaden participation in computing through the Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science Principles (CSP) course in high school have been promising, but not all schools offer AP courses and not all students take them. This project asks whether offering CSP through concurrent enrollment (CE) might reach more students AP does not. In its first year of CSP-CE courses in two states, this research found CSP-CE classrooms, much like AP CSP classrooms, did not mirror the demographics of their schools in terms of gender. However, CSP-CE classes in one state did attract Hispanic and Native American students in proportions comparable to the school populations. Even though schools shifted to distance learning, student success rates were high: upwards of 80% earned college credit. Ongoing research will study future cohorts, as well as factors that influence decisions to offer CS-through-CE. This poster will be of interest to post-secondary and K-12 CS educators, CS Principles teachers, and others interested in broadening participation in K16.