What Factors Influence Persistence in Project-Based Programming Courses at Community Colleges?

The rapid adoption of emergent technologies is creating significant shortfall in the CS/IT workforce. With not enough students in the educational pipeline to meet the forthcoming demand over the next decade, community colleges are making the effort to train confident, knowledgeable, and self-driven workers in this field. Project-based learning (PBL) has been shown to be effective for these ends, but it poses distinct challenges in resource-limited community college contexts since it may require more time, preparation, and motivation than other teaching modalities, from both the student and the instructor. We studied fifteen sections of an introductory project-based Python course taught at six community colleges, investigating several features of PBL theorized to be particular barriers to student persistence, particularly among women and other identities traditionally underrepresented in technical fields. We describe successes and challenges faced by students in these areas and suggest implications for project-based learning curriculum and platform design.