Assessing the Effectiveness of Selective Marketing to Broaden Participation in CS Education
Aditya Shah, Tyler Menezes
TL;DR
The paper addresses unequal participation in open-enrollment CS education by testing a refined marketing strategy aimed at reducing outreach to affluent groups and enhancing school-based, cost-supported access. The approach involves targeted communication to Title I schools, cross-disciplinary outreach, and explicit promotion of cost supports, evaluated via a pre/post design with $N=285$ participants and analyzed using Pearson's $\chi^2$ tests with Holm–Bonferroni correction and Cramer's $V$ for effect size. Key findings show a large association between the improved marketing and underrepresented ethnicity ($V=0.53$) and a medium association with low-income status ($V=0.49$), with no significant gender effect, supporting the value of intentional recruitment strategies for broadening participation. The work provides practical guidance for inclusive recruitment in K-12 CS programs and highlights marketing as a lever for diversifying CS participation, though generalizability is limited by design and location.
Abstract
Many studies have aimed to broaden participation in computing (BPC) through extracurricular educational initiatives. When these initiatives are structured as open-enrollment extracurricular programs, their success often depends on their marketing approach. However, there is little in the computing education research literature about how to conduct effective marketing for these initiatives. We describe the changes made to the marketing strategy of one such program, an educational hackathon for middle school and high school students in the Pacific Northwest. These included reducing promotion to affluent families, using targeted school-based communication, and emphasizing cost supports during initial promotion. We then compare attendance and self-reported demographics before and after the intervention. Results indicate a higher proportion of students from marginalized and low-income communities and no reduction in overall attendance.