Characterizing the Student-TA Ecosystem in Computing Programs: A Two Year, Multi-University TA Training Experiment

We present an experiment designed to evaluate the teaching assistant (TA) ecosystem in computing programs, particularly in relation to whether or not in-person, pedagogically focused TA training, based on social constructivist learning theory, impacts TA and student experiences in office hours. We collect data from computing programs at five universities over two years, amounting to more than 300 TA responses and 4,600 student responses. While previous studies in computing education have identified TAs’ potential to increase student sense of belonging as well as which stances TAs adopt to demonstrate care towards students, to our knowledge, this work represents the widest spanning collection of student and TA data to date, both specifically within computing and in general. We make three important contributions to computing education research from quantitative analysis of our data. First, we identify race, course, university, class standing, and whether or not a TA has been trained as significant factors for TA experiences. Specifically, for effects of training, we find that TAs who receive any training are more confident in encouraging questions and engagement, creating a welcoming environment, telling students when they do not know an answer, and conducting office hours. Our second contribution characterizes student experiences in office hours. We show that student disability status is associated with significantly different office hours experiences across universities, followed by race, course, and term. Our final contribution focuses on the students who do not attend office hours. To our knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes students in computing programs who do not attend office hours as well as those who do attend office hours. We find that students with historically marginalized identities are more likely to report avoiding office hours due to being externally -avoidant, being pushed away by external factors, such as not feeling comfortable with any TAs for the course, than their peers. In contrast, students with historically privileged identities are more likely to report not attending office hours because they are internally -avoidant, reporting that they do not need help. Finally, we show that students indicating they have a disability report both worse experiences in office hours and more reticence to attend office hours, leaving them in a particularly challenging situation. These findings specifically speak to student and TA experiences within computing; this is a field that not only has a well-documented and unique history of marginalization based on identity characteristics such as race and gender, it has also seen a boom in enrollment since the early 2000s that has been answered, in part, by computing programs relying on TAs to provide instructional support. Given this unique setting, we create a detailed portrait of the student-TA ecosystem in computing across several universities, characterizing TA experiences, student experiences, and differences that emerge along demographic lines.