Empowering Persistence

The Impact of Mentoring on Women’s Sense of Belonging in Computing Education

Abstract

The computing field is suffering from a diversity crisis, as most of its workforce falls within a tight demographic. Homogeneous groups are proven to be less productive and less able to produce technology that meets the needs of a wide range of users. Therefore, increasing diversity by, for instance, employing more women in technology is a shared interest. Studies have shown that mentoring is one of the key success factors for recruiting marginalized groups, such as women in computing, because through its structured support it provides them with role models and makes the field more attractive. At the same time, much less research has focused on how and with what efficiency mentoring can be used to ensure that the women who are already enrolled in computing courses actually stay in the program and later in the profession, amidst significant dropout rates. Not only recruiting but also retaining women is an important prerequisite for increasing gender balance in the computing sector. The objective of this article is to present and evaluate a mentoring program that provided mentoring opportunities to female university students at three European universities in 2024-2025 with the intention of increasing their self-efficacy within various STEM fields, primarily computing. We collected data through two questionnaires – one before the mentorship program began, and then one after it finished – and examined whether mentoring had a positive impact on women’s perception of their ability and willingness to complete their studies and stay in the profession. The results show that mentoring can most effectively help women by increasing their sense of belonging in the field. Even though without longitudinal studies it is not possible to draw firm conclusions about whether mentees actually stay in computing in the long run, research has shown that a sense of belonging is one of the key factors for success.