Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Research Group

The EDI Research Group sits within the School's Education and Practice (EAP) section. Group members are interested in understanding and addressing the issues associated with equality, diversity, and inclusion across Computing Science education and industry. Our work to date has looked at topics including: improving gender balance in CS education, widening participation in higher education, and increasing social mobility through work-based degrees.

We are interested in supervising PhDs in this area - contact details are available via the links to members' profile pages on the right-hand side of the page if you'd like to get in touch.

Current Projects

  • Understanding the role models that inspire women to study Computing Science
    • Dr Matthew Barr, Kristina Pavlou, and Kathleen West
  • Investigating and improving induction training for CS work-based learning workplace mentors, especially to ensure inclusion
    • Dr Matthew Barr and Dr Maria Kallia (led by Edinburgh Napier University)

Published Research

Barr, M. , Andrei, O. and Kallia, M. (2023) Widening access to higher education through degree-level apprenticeships in software engineering. In: IEEE ASEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE 2023), College Station, Texas, 18–21 October 2023, ISBN 9798350336429 (doi: 10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343199)  WIDENING PARTICIPATION 

Almuadi, M. and Barr, M. (2023) Exploring Gender Disparities in Online Peer Feedback System: An Analysis of Feedback Levels and Quality. In: Peer Review, Peer Assessment, and Self Assessment in Education, 9th International Workshop (PRASAE 2023), Sydney, Australia, 26 -28 November 2023  GENDER BALANCE 

Barr, M. and Kallia, M. (2022) Why students drop computing science: using models of motivation to understand student attrition and retention. In: Koli Calling '22: 22nd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli 22), Koli, Finland, 17-20 November 2022, p. 17. ISBN 9781450396165 (doi: 10.1145/3564721.3564733)   GENDER BALANCE 

Taylor-Smith, E., Shankland, C., Smith, S. and Barr, M. (2022) Mobilising More Women into Computing. In: 2022 SRHE International Research Conference: Mobilities in Higher Education, Online, 5-9 December 2022   GENDER BALANCE 

Taylor-Smith, E., Barnett, C., Smith, S., Barr, M. and Shankland, C. (2022) Participant-centred planning Framework for effective gender balance activities in tech. In: United Kingdom and Ireland Computing Education Research (UKICER 2022), Dublin, Ireland, 1-2 Sept 2022, pp. 1-7. ISBN 9781450397421 (doi: 10.1145/3555009.3555016)  GENDER BALANCE 

Morrison, B. B. et al. (2021) Evidence for Teaching Practices that Broaden Participation for Women in Computing. In: 2021 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE-WGR '21), 26 Jun - 01 Jul 2021, pp. 57-131. ISBN 9781450392020 (doi: 10.1145/3502870.3506568)   GENDER BALANCE    WIDENING PARTICIPATION 

Kallia, M. and Cutts, Q. (2021) Re-Examining Inequalities in Computer Science Participation from a Bourdieusian Sociological Perspective. In: 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER 2021), 16-19 Aug 2021, pp. 379-392. ISBN 9781450383264 (doi: 10.1145/3446871.3469763)  WIDENING PARTICIPATION 

Smith, S., Taylor-Smith, E., Fabian, K., Zarb, M., Paterson, J., Barr, M. and Berg, T. (2021) A multi-institutional exploration of the social mobility potential of degree apprenticeships. Journal of Education and Work, 34(4), pp. 488-503. (doi: 10.1080/13639080.2021.1946494)  WIDENING PARTICIPATION 

Smith, S., Taylor-Smith, E., Fabian, K., Barr, M. , Berg, T., Cutting, D., Paterson, J., Young, T. and Zarb, M. (2020) Computing Degree Apprenticeships: An Opportunity to Address Gender Imbalance in the IT Sector? In: 2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), Uppsala, Sweden, 21-24 Oct 2020, ISBN 9781728189611 (doi: 10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274144)   GENDER BALANCE 

Kallia, M. and Sentance, S. (2018) Are Boys More Confident Than Girls? The Role of Calibration and Students' Self-Efficacy in Programming Tasks and Computer Science. In: 13th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education (WiPSCE '18), Potsdam, Germany, 04-06 Oct 2018, p. 16. ISBN 9781450365888 (doi: 10.1145/3265757.3265773)   GENDER BALANCE 

Group Members