We report our development of a survey measuring students’ sense of belonging in computing courses. Existing definitions and surveys are helpful in identifying and measuring perceptions of belonging (e.g., feeling accepted, included, and valued) but give little insight into why students feel they do (not) belong. To address this limitation, we use a conceptual framework that breaks sense of belonging into four components: motivations, opportunities, competencies, and perceptions. Survey item development was based on interviews with undergraduate computing students that were analyzed using this conceptual framework. We revised survey items based on 1) cognitive interviews and 2) psychometric properties of pilot survey data with participants from multiple required courses typically taken by first- and second-year undergraduate computing students.

The resulting survey consists of 12 items with three items per component of the conceptual framework. A four-factor confirmatory factor analysis model indicated good empirical fit with the proposed structure of the framework ($N=514$). Cronbach’s $alpha$ indicated good internal consistency within each component ($>0.70$) as well as across all 12 items (>0.90). The inter-component correlations were relatively high for all pairs of components (>0.60), aligning with previous interview findings that indicate the components may influence each other.

We believe we have sufficient evidence of validity for the survey’s use in undergraduate computing courses and discuss avenues for future work.