Part of the plan? A critical quantitative examination of mentoring and psychosocial mediators shaping computing students’ graduate school applications

Despite decades of attention, racial/ethnic and gender inequities persist across science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine disciplines. In computing higher education, the disciplinary focus of this study, institutional actors must look to critical junctures between educational levels (e.g., between undergraduate and graduate degrees) to explore possible ways to disrupt processes of social reproduction. Using longitudinal data from computing undergraduate students across 15 U.S. research universities, we apply a critical quantitative lens to examine the relationship between graduate school aspirations and application behaviors. We use multiple-group structural equation modeling to focus on mediators of mentoring support and students' self-confidence for graduate school admission. Findings show that graduate education pathways vary significantly by intersecting gender and racial/ethnic identity groups, highlighting the need for equitable support in computing departments (especially among Women of Color). We offer implications for both institutional practitioners and larger policy intermediaries, as well as a discussion of theoretical and empirical needs to continue resolving disparities in computing fields and disrupt the mechanisms that turn highly qualified computing students away from graduate education

Graduate students · Higher education · Psychosocial · Qualitative research · Semi-structured interview · Mentoring and Academic Development