publications | Emma Hogan Benser

Conference Articles

2025

Faculty Identities and Their Effects on Implementing Culturally Relevant Pedagogies at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Ismael Villegas Molina , Emma Hogan , Nawab Mulla , and 4 more authors

In Proceedings of the ACM Global on Computing Education Conference 2025 Vol 1 , 2025

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The CS education research community has increasingly embraced researcher positionality as an important aspect influencing our research. However, how CS educators’ positionality impacts pedagogical choices is less known. In the U.S., where this study takes place, Black, Latine, Native, and Pacific Islander people are even less represented among CS faculty than among CS students in higher education. Recent work documents the benefits of culturallyrelevant pedagogies in CS and strategies for implementation at the higher education level. This study investigates how CS faculty’s racial/ethnic identity impacts their use of these pedagogical strategies that leverage students’ culture. We interviewed 21 CS faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions in the U.S., five of whom identified as Latine, and report findings of a phenomenographic analysis, including benefits of Latine identity alignment, and strategies of non-Latine faculty to achieve cultural competence.
Fears and Confidence amongst Incarcerated Adult CS1 Students

Emma Hogan , Audria Saravia-Montalvo , Ginger Smith , and 5 more authors

In Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 , 2025

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Understanding incarcerated adult (IA) students’ fears upon entering a CS1 course and how their confidence changes throughout the course can help us understand how well IA students’ fears are being addressed, and help future instructors of CS1 in prison address them better. Building on recent work on non-CS majors’ fears and confidence in introductory CS, we surveyed 45 IA students across two offerings of a CS1 course in prison on their fears going into the course, and confidence in their ability to succeed. We present a phenomenographic analysis of fears amongst IA students in CS1, and analyze relationships between these fears and change in confidence. In addition, we compare the fears expressed by IA students to those of non-CS majors from prior work. Findings include many IA students reporting no fears, but an overall decrease in confidence across both offerings of the course which was mostly accounted for by students who did express initial fears. We found 9 fears overlapping with those found in a prior study outside of the prison context (e.g., getting a bad grade), and 7 fears only identified in our study (e.g., interference from circumstances beyond my control).
Attitudes Towards Computing Amongst Incarcerated Adult Students in CS1

Emma Hogan , Ginger Smith , Jose Salazar , and 5 more authors

In Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 , 2025

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Recent work has shown that incarcerated adult students reported a decrease in confidence in their ability to do well in the course as the course progressed, whereas non-incarcerated students in a traditional educational setting reported an increase in confidence over time on the same measure. Given these differences in student experiences between incarcerated adult students and traditional students, this work seeks to further understand the experiences of incarcerated adult in CS1, with a focus on their attitudes towards computing. Specifically, we used the Computing Attitude Survey (CAS) as a pre/post measurement in a CS1 course taught in prison. We found significant positive shifts for Problem Solving – Transfer and Fixed Mindset factors and a slight decrease for Real-World Connections. We additionally compare the results of the CAS survey between the incarcerated adult students in this study and those of non-incarcerated students reported in prior work.
How Students Value Technology vs. Paper-Based Resources in CS1 in Prison

Emma Hogan , Zyanya Rios , Emily Nguyen , and 3 more authors

In Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Research on Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology , 2025

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Supplemental resources have particular importance in prison learning contexts, as incarcerated students have less access to course staff and limited ability to seek additional resources themselves (e.g., restricted internet access). In this paper, we examine how students valued paper-based (e.g., textbook) and technology-based (e.g., Canvas discussion board) resources in two iterations of a CS1 course taught in prison. Students in the first iteration did not have access to a code interpreter, while students in the second iteration did. Findings include how students across these two CS1 offerings valued different resources, compared across students’ age and comfort with technology.
Faculty Implementation of Culturally Relevant Pedagogies at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Ismael Villegas Molina , Emma Hogan , Nawab Mulla , and 4 more authors

In Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 , 2025
Observations of Highly Successful, Distributed Teams in a K-12 Online Security Competition

Emma Hogan , Alejandro Cuevas Villalba , Hanan Hibshi , and 1 more author

In Proceedings of the 25th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research , 2025
Faculty Reasons For Using or Refraining From Culturally Relevant Pedagogies at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Ismael Villegas Molina , Emma Hogan , Josue Martinez , and 4 more authors

In Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Research on Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology , 2025

2024

Challenges and Approaches to Teaching CS1 in Prison

Emma Hogan , Ruoxuan Li , Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj , and 2 more authors

In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 , Mar 2024

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Efforts to bring incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals into the field of computing stand to improve equitable access to both computing jobs, and consequently the benefits of our tools and innovations through the inclusion of more diverse perspec- tives. This report describes the design and execution of a college level introductory computing course conducted with 26 students currently incarcerated at a prison in the United States in Fall 2022. We discuss the ways that the prison environment and the student body differ from traditional college computing classes, and how this impacted the design and execution of the course. We found that despite significant environmental barriers to learning to program, such as not having access to a code interpreter, there were unique affordances of the student population, including maturity and community, that could be leveraged in the course design and policies. We conclude with many lessons learned for the purpose of improving future offerings of computing courses in prisons.
Uncovering meaningful computing contexts for incarcerated college students

Emma Hogan , John Driscoll , Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj , and 2 more authors

In Proceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 , Mar 2024

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Higher education is expanding in United States prisons, with a growing demand for STEM offerings. Academics from other disciplines have stressed the importance of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) in prison higher education, and computing in context has shown major benefits in CS1— especially for women and nontraditional students. More work is needed to determine what contexts are relevant to incarcerated college students, and how to incorporate these into computing curricula. In this paper, we build on prior work on computing in context and culturally relevant techniques in computing. We analyze course data from a CS1 course taught in a college-in-prison program to answer the following research question: What contexts do incarcerated students in CS1 find relevant? We identify 24 topics pursued by students across 78 open-ended programming assignment submissions, the three most popular being business management, sports statistics, and physical health. These results offer insight into potential contexts that are meaningful to incarcerated college students to be incorporated into future computing curricula and interventions in prisons.
Re-instatement of Pell Grants for incarcerated students: Implications for CS education

Emma Hogan , Darakhshan Mir , Andrew Cencini , and 4 more authors

In Proceedings of the 2024 on RESPECT Annual Conference , Mar 2024

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The US incarcerates more people, and at a higher rate, than any other country in the world—predominantly low-income people of color. Higher education in prison (HEP) has a powerful impact on justice-impacted people, improving their quality of life during incarceration and reducing their likelihood of returning to prison post-release. HEP nearly disappeared in 1994 after Pell Grant eligibility was eliminated for incarcerated students, which was recently reinstated. More computing educators can reach incarcerated students with digital literacy skills, core computing content, and critical analyses of the impacts of computing on society. CS education researchers can also support the growth of CS education in prisons, and influence policies restricting technology infrastructure.

2023

CS0 vs. CS1:: Understanding Fears and Confidence amongst Non-majors in Introductory CS Courses

Emma Hogan , Ruoxuan Li , and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj

In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 , Mar 2023

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Previous research has been devoted to improving the experience of non-majors in introductory CS courses. In this study, we compare the experiences of non-majors in two different introductory CS courses, specifically with respect to fears about taking the course and change in confidence levels. CS0 is a computing course intentionally designed for non-majors, and CS1 is a more traditional introductory computing course. Both of these courses were composed primarily of non-majors and were taught by the same instructor. Survey data was collected from 124 students enrolled in CS0, and 502 students enrolled in CS1. Through qualitative analysis, we found that the fears of non-major students entering both of these introductory CS courses fell into one or more of nine distinct categories (e.g., Coding, Perceiving STEM as Difficult, Managing Workload). Additionally, using students’ confidence levels at the beginning and end of the courses, we found that students in CS0 had a greater increase in confidence level than those in CS1. Finally, we explored connections between students’ fears and how their confidence changed by the end of the course. We found that students across both courses with fears related to coding, lack of preparation, and being left behind had the highest average increase in confidence levels.
An Empirical Evaluation of Live Coding in CS1

Anshul Shah , Emma Hogan , Vardhan Agarwal , and 4 more authors

In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research V.1 , Aug 2023

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Background and Context. Live coding is a teaching method in which an instructor dynamically writes code in front of students in an effort to impart skills such as incremental development and debugging. By contrast, traditional, static-code examples typically involve an instructor annotating or explaining components of pre-written code. Despite recommendations to use live coding and a wealth of qualitative analyses that identify perceived learning benefits of it, there are a lack of empirical evaluations to confirm those learning benefits, especially with respect to students’ programming processes. Objectives. Our work aims to provide a holistic, empirical comparison of a live-coding pedagogy with a static-code one. We evaluated the impact of a live-coding pedagogy on three main areas: 1) students’ adherence to effective programming processes, 2) their performance on exams and assignments, and 3) their lecture experiences, such as engagement during lecture and perceptions of code examples. Method. In our treatment-control quasi-experimental setup, one lecture group saw live-coding examples while the other saw only static-code ones. Both lecture groups were taught by the same instructor, were taught the exact same content, and completed the same assignments and exams. We collected compilation-level programming process data, student performance on exam and homework questions, and feedback via a survey and course evaluations. Findings. Our findings showed no statistically significant differences between the live-coding and static-code groups on programming process metrics related to incremental development, debugging, and productivity. Similarly, there was no difference between the groups on course performance on assignments and exams. Finally, student feedback suggests that more students in the live-coding group reported that lectures were too fast and failed to facilitate note-taking, potentially mitigating the perceived benefits of live coding. Implications. Live coding alone may not lead to many of the perceived and intended benefits that prior work identifies, but future work may investigate how to realize these benefits while minimizing the drawbacks we identified.
The Impact of a Remote Live-Coding Pedagogy on Student Programming Processes, Grades, and Lecture Questions Asked

Anshul Shah , Vardhan Agarwal , Michael Granado , and 5 more authors

In Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 , Jun 2023

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Live coding—a pedagogical technique in which an instructor plans, writes, and executes code in front of a class—is generally considered a best practice when teaching programming. However, only a few studies have evaluated the effect of live coding on student learning in a controlled experiment and most of the literature relating to live coding identifies students’ perceived benefits of live-coding examples. In order to empirically evaluate the impact of live coding, we designed a controlled experiment in a CS1 course taught in Python at a large public university. In the two remote lecture sections for the course, one was taught using live-coding examples and the other was taught using static-code examples. Throughout the term, we collected code snapshots from students’ programming assignments, students’ grades, and the questions that they asked during the remote lectures. We then applied a set of process-oriented programming metrics to students’ programming data to compare students’ adherence to effective programming processes in the two learning groups and categorized each question asked in lectures following an open-coding approach. Our results revealed a general lack of difference between the two groups across programming processes, grades, and lecture questions asked. However, our experiment uncovered minimal effects in favor of the live-coding group indicating improved programming processes but lower performance on assignments and grades. Our results suggest an overall insignificant impact of the style of presenting code examples, though we reflect on the threats to validity in our study that should be addressed in future work.
Engagement and Anonymity in Online Computer Science Course Forums

Mrinal Sharma , Hayden McTavish , Zimo Peng , and 7 more authors

In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research V.1 , Aug 2023

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Online discussion boards, designed to facilitate learning from peers and instructors in an accessible space, are a vital part of course design, especially in large scale computer science classes. Previous work has shown that women in computer science tend to use anonymity more often than men on these boards, a trend not found in humanities, social science or business courses. In this work, we build on these findings using an intersectional lens, analyzing both gender and race/ethnicity. We find this combined analysis reveals differences in anonymity that are not apparent when examining gender alone. For example, we find a significantly greater difference in anonymity use between Hispanic men and women than would be expected from analyzing race/ethnicity and gender independently. We additionally analyze type of content (e.g., questions, answers), course, platform, and data source to characterize the many factors at play in measuring students’ choice to participate anonymously. In doing so, we show that different approaches used in prior work for eliciting information on gender — whether using registrar data, a survey, or imputing gender based on name — changes how over 20% of students are classified, particularly affecting nonbinary students and Asian students. Understanding when students participate anonymously can help educators and platform designers to make students’ experience of online discussion boards more welcoming.
The Impact of a Remote Live-Coding Pedagogy on Student Programming Processes, Grades, and Lecture Questions Asked

Anshul Shah , Vardhan Agarwal , Michael Granado , and 5 more authors

In Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 , Aug 2023

Theses

2025

Improving Computing Education for Incarcerated College Students

Emma Madeleine Hogan

University of California, San Diego , Aug 2025

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Little is known in computing education research about teaching CS in adult prison contexts, or how to help adult incarcerated college students succeed in computing. Thus, my doctoral work has sought to establish a foundational understanding of best practices for computing higher education to broaden participation in computing amongst incarcerated and formerly incarcerated adults. This work draws on existing theories and frameworks from CS education and other fields, including design experiment methodology, critical andragogy, culturally relevant education, and computing in context. Findings are based on teaching 72 incarcerated college students across three iterations of introductory CS in a local college-in-prison program. This includes results of 1) using a design experiment methodology in offering CS1 in an adult prison, documenting various barriers and adapted strategies for mitigating them; 2) a qualitative analysis of 78 open-ended programming assignment submissions identifying 24 potential meaningful computing contexts for incarcerated adult students; 3) a phenomenographic study of fears of incarcerated adult students entering a CS1 course, changes in confidence throughout the course, and how fears and confidence compare between CS1 students in prison vs. on main campus; 4) a mixed methods study of students’ attitudes toward computing before and after a CS1 course, measuring the impacts of students gaining access to a code interpreter in the final iteration of the course. This is followed by a discussion of next steps in this work, including how these results can inform policy changes to help make computer science degrees in prison a reality.

2021

The Role of Technology in Supporting the Learning Needs of All Levels of Incarcerated Students: A Supplement, not a Replacement

Emma Hogan

Aug 2021

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This research contributes to answering this question of how to improve correctional education by defining the role of technology in its ideal implementation, in order to maximize the impact of education for as many incarcerated learners as possible. In Part I, I detail the survey conducted in Albany County Jail to support this research with the primary source of perspectives from currently incarcerated learners. From that point forward, first-hand accounts from these individuals are spread throughout the paper (indicated with italics and block quotes at the beginnings of sections to which they apply) in order to situate all of the points I make within the context of the lives this work intends to serve. Part II focuses on current policy related to correctional education, grounding my arguments in the reality of what the law does and does not require and how this dictates the current state of education in prisons and jails. In Part III, I identify the specific learning needs of the incarcerated population. Part IV assesses how the current state of correctional education fails to meet these needs, and particularly the limitations of technology in its current implementation. My research culminates in Part V with recommendations on the role technology should have in the future of correctional education.

news

2024

Opinion: Teaching Computer Science in the Prison Has Been a Challenging and Rewarding Experience.

Emma Hogan

Jun 2024

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2021

OPINION: Washington’s DOC Is Trapping Incarcerated Men in Solitary Confinement

Emma Hogan , and Hannah Bolotin

Jul 2021

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Locked out of life-saving education programs

Emma Hogan , and Hannah Bolotin

Jul 2021

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Front facing, on their letterhead and websites, the Washington State Department of Corrections and legislature verbalize what they believe the voting public wants to read and hear. However, behind closed doors, in caucus, in action, in reality, they are locking prisoners out of educational

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2025

Teaching Computing in Prison

Emma Hogan , Darakhshan Mir , Keith O’Hara , and 1 more author

Jul 2025

2024

Uncovering Meaningful Computing Contexts for Incarcerated College Students

Emma Hogan

Jan 2024

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Higher education is expanding in United States prisons, with a growing demand for STEM offerings. Academics from other disciplines have stressed the importance of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) in prison higher education, and computing in context has shown major benefits in CS1— especially for women and nontraditional students. More work is needed to determine what contexts are relevant to incarcerated college students, and how to incorporate these into computing curricula. In this paper, we build on prior work on computing in context and culturally relevant techniques in computing. We analyze course data from a CS1 course taught in a college-in-prison program to answer the following research question: What contexts do incarcerated students in CS1 find relevant? We identify 24 topics pursued by students across 78 open-ended programming assignment submissions, the three most popular being business management, sports statistics, and physical health. These results offer insight into potential contexts that are meaningful to incarcerated college students to be incorporated into future computing curricula and interventions in prisons.
Improving Computing Higher Education in Prisons

Emma Hogan

Jan 2024

2023

Challenges and Approaches to Teaching Computing in Prison

Emma Hogan

Nov 2023

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Computer science (CS), and STEM fields in general, historically exclude people from underserved communities, who are overrepresented in the prison population. In higher education programs in prison, offerings of STEM courses are often limited, posing unique challenges to providing the same educational quality as found on traditional college campuses. For CS courses, technology infrastructure and policies make it difficult for instructors to make essential tools – such as code interpreters where students can run code – available to students. This puts students in computing courses at an undeniable disadvantage, as so much of the learning process of writing code is by doing: running code, understanding the output, and adjusting based on any errors. While students do not have access to technological tools and software needed for their education, instructors will have difficulty closing the gap between incarcerated and non-incarcerated students’ success. During this talk, I will share my experience as a CS instructor in prison, and discuss the barriers to learning computing in prison settings. I will also discuss practical solutions I have found to be effective, as well as ideas I have planned for future iterations of this course.
CS0 vs. CS1: Understanding Fears and Confidence amongst Non-majors in Introductory CS Courses

Emma Hogan

Mar 2023

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Previous research has been devoted to improving the experience of non-majors in introductory CS courses. In this study, we compare the experiences of non-majors in two different introductory CS courses, specifically with respect to fears about taking the course and change in confidence levels. CS0 is a computing course intentionally designed for non-majors, and CS1 is a more traditional introductory computing course. Both of these courses were composed primarily of non-majors and were taught by the same instructor. Survey data was collected from 124 students enrolled in CS0, and 502 students enrolled in CS1. Through qualitative analysis, we found that the fears of non-major students entering both of these introductory CS courses fell into one or more of nine distinct categories (e.g., Coding, Perceiving STEM as Difficult, Managing Workload). Additionally, using students’ confidence levels at the beginning and end of the courses, we found that students in CS0 had a greater increase in confidence level than those in CS1. Finally, we explored connections between students’ fears and how their confidence changed by the end of the course. We found that students across both courses with fears related to coding, lack of preparation, and being left behind had the highest average increase in confidence levels.

2021

Thrown Away in Our Prison System: How Poor People of Color with Mental Illness are Ostracized

Emma Hogan , Kevin Allen , and Ari Kohn

Oct 2021

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2020

Lessons Learned for Computer Security Teams from High-Performance CTF Teams

Emma Hogan

Sep 2020

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