Location
Hilton Waikoloa Village, Hawaii
Event Website
https://hicss.hawaii.edu/
Start Date
7-1-2025 12:00 AM
End Date
10-1-2025 12:00 AM
Description
Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) has been established as effective method for increasing student engagement, learning, and retention in STEM, The focus on communal goals and demonstrated improvements in students’ sense of belonging can improve inclusion and equity in disciplines such as Computing. However, widespread integration of CEL into the computing curriculum is still limited and not practiced with consistent effectiveness. This interview study seeks to understand what barriers exist for instructors to fully engage in CEL and contribute to broadening participation in STEM. Our results show that a culture of devaluating service, ad-hoc efforts to establish mutually beneficial relationships with partners, and issues of artifact maintainability are significant barriers. From these results, we present a novel framework: the Triangle of Community-Engaged Learning, intended as a tool for educators to systematically evaluate their goals, capabilities, and accountability with CEL, and for researchers to apply in future work in this area.
Recommended Citation
Toh, Christine and Grover, Andrea, "“I Wish I Could Do More”: Institutional and Systemic Barriers to Effective Community-Engaged Learning for Equity and Inclusion in STEM Disciplines" (2025). Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2025 (HICSS-58). 6.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/hicss-58/sj/stem/6
“I Wish I Could Do More”: Institutional and Systemic Barriers to Effective Community-Engaged Learning for Equity and Inclusion in STEM Disciplines
Hilton Waikoloa Village, Hawaii
Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) has been established as effective method for increasing student engagement, learning, and retention in STEM, The focus on communal goals and demonstrated improvements in students’ sense of belonging can improve inclusion and equity in disciplines such as Computing. However, widespread integration of CEL into the computing curriculum is still limited and not practiced with consistent effectiveness. This interview study seeks to understand what barriers exist for instructors to fully engage in CEL and contribute to broadening participation in STEM. Our results show that a culture of devaluating service, ad-hoc efforts to establish mutually beneficial relationships with partners, and issues of artifact maintainability are significant barriers. From these results, we present a novel framework: the Triangle of Community-Engaged Learning, intended as a tool for educators to systematically evaluate their goals, capabilities, and accountability with CEL, and for researchers to apply in future work in this area.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/hicss-58/sj/stem/6