Sense of belonging in undergraduate computing students: A scoping review

Abstract

Sense of belonging in education encompasses an individual's experiences of feeling accepted, valued, and included within educational environments. Not all students experience the same level of sense of belonging, and those from marginalised or under-represented groups are shown to report lower levels of belonging compared to others in their cohorts. Fostering a stronger sense of belonging amongst these groups to address this unevenness is beneficial for retaining diversity and closing representation gaps, as students persist when they feel they belong. However, student belonging is complex and challenging to measure. For the development of meaningful interventions to level sense of belonging across various groups by improving belonging for those with lower belonging, there is a need for clarity on how 1) sense of belonging is theorised in research into undergraduate students, 2) how it is measured, and 3) how belonging has been operationalised to improve diversity and student retention. This review focuses specifically on computing, as a discipline with persistent representation gaps limiting its development, synthesising existing studies investigating sense of belonging among undergraduate computing students. The PRISMA extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-Scr) was utilised to source and review 22 relevant peer-reviewed articles published between 2013 and 2022. The review shows that most existing research follows a quantitative study. The research reveals how multiple barriers to student belonging are experienced differently across different student populations. Belongingness has significant disparities relating to gender, race, and sexuality that may explain representation gaps, but attention needs to be paid to how these identities intersect to shape student experiences. The research also suggests various social and academic interventions that can raise sense of belonging. These findings provide valuable insights into undergraduate student belonging that may inform the development of targeted interventions aimed at retaining diverse student cohorts and closing representation gaps, as well as informing future research aimed at fostering and improving sense of belonging among undergraduate computing students.