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A Qualitative Analysis of Computing Students' Professional Identity and its Relationship to Strategies for Coping with Stressors in the Computing Disciplines

Year: 2007

Type: article

Abstract: In this qualitative study, undergraduate computing students from two mid-sized southeastern universities participated in focus groups to explore their (1) developing professional identities, (2) salient stressors within their computing education programs, and (3) coping strategies used to navigate these stressors.Students provided contextual evidence to support the formation of professional identity as it relates to the IT field.Examples of student stressors drawn from our analysis were demanding coursework, unbalanced life, long nights, feelings of lack of preparedness, and constantly changing technology.The dominant coping strategies employed by these computing students were (1) the problem-focused strategies of planning and realism and (2) the emotion-focused strategies of avoidance and comedic-displacement.Additional themes were discovered and are discussed.

Source: Journal of the Association for Information Systems

Authors: K. Vernard Harrington, Tracy L. Lewis, Wanda J. Smith

Language: English

Topic: Student Stress and Coping

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Science Foundation

Awards: ITWF: Collaborative Research: African Americans in IT: Improving the Graduate Education and Workforce Piplelines, ITWF: Collaborative Research: African-Americans in IT: Improving the Graduate Education and Workforce Pipelines

OpenAlex ID: W1527686333

FWCI: 0.94

Cites: 27

Cited by: 5

Related to: 10