WIP: Understanding the Production of Highly Qualified Computer Science Teachers in a Predominant Hispanic Community: Computer Science Undergraduate Students' Perceptions of Becoming a Teacher

This research WIP paper describes computer science undergraduate students' perceptions of career pathways and becoming K-12 computer science teachers. Computer science (CS) education has become critical with the rapid pace of technological development to better prepare students for national technology and economic competitiveness and security. According to Code.org, 57.5% of U.S. public high schools offer foundational computer science courses in 2023; unfortunately, access to the courses remains unequal and maintains wide disparities by race/ethnicity and social class. For instance, Hispanics are 1.4 times less likely to take foundational CS courses compared to their white and Asian peers, and students with low socio-economic status are underrepresented in the overall population. The shortage of CS teachers is one of the significant barriers to why minoritized groups of students do not have equal access to learning CS. Various programmatic efforts have been implemented to address the gap, including the recruitment of undergraduate students who will earn bachelor's degrees in computing. This approach has been considered innovative in building a new pipeline for producing highly qualified CS teachers with the ability to transform computing education and the CS teacher community rather than training in-service teachers certified in other disciplines to receive credentials to teach CS. Studies report that CS degree recipients opt for industry roles and exhibit disinterest in alternative career pathways, such as teaching because they perceive this profession as having lower salaries and unfavorable aspects associated with the job. However, we need a more prosperous and in-depth understanding of why CS degree holders consider industry jobs of greater importance rather than teaching, which would reduce the disparity in K-12 computing education. As a first attempt to better understand the perceptions of computer science undergraduate students at an Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), we collected qualitative data (i.e., student artifacts) in a course offered in the computer science department. Driven by social cognitive career and FIT-choice theory, our findings from the preliminary analysis indicate that CS undergraduate students at an HSI acknowledged the importance of K-12 CS teachers in their communities, but at the same time, they have more concerns about the underpayment and undervaluation of the job. They have shown a conflict between their perceptions of teaching CS and their own career aspirations as CS teachers. These preliminary findings draw attention to the importance of uncovering common career plans among CS undergraduate students.