The literature on African-American males begins with a statement to the effect that “Today young Black men are more likely to be killed or sent to prison than to graduate from college.” Why are the numbers of African-American male college graduates decreasing? Why are those enrolled in college not majoring in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines? This research seeks to explain why African-American males are not filling the well-recognized industry need for Computer Scientist/Technologists by choosing college tracks to these careers. The literature on STEM disciplines focuses largely on women in STEM, as opposed to minorities, and within minorities, there is a noticeable research gap in addressing the needs and opportunities available to African-American males. The primary goal of this study is therefore to examine the computer science “pipeline” from the African-American male perspective. The method will be a “Computer Science Degree Self-Efficacy Scale” to be distributed to five groups of African-American male students, to include: 1) fourth graders, 2) eighth graders, 3) eleventh graders, 4) lower-level undergraduate computer science majors, and 5) upper-level undergraduate computer science majors. In addition to a 30-question self-efficacy test, the subjects from each group will be asked to participate in a group discussion about “African-American males in computer science.” The video record of each group meeting will provide qualitative data for the study. The hypotheses is these groups will show no significant differences in self-efficacy between the lower and higher reaches within each of the subject groups. Finally, the researcher will select African-American male students attending six primary schools, including three that the researcher attended during his own academic career. These include three schools located in Fort Washington, Maryland: Apple Grove Elementary, Isscac Gourdine Middle School, and Friendly High School. Three schools are located in Bowie, Maryland: Kenniworth Elementary, Tasker Middle and Bowie High School. Bowie State University will provide both the lower-level and upper-level computer science majors surveyed in this study.Daryl Bryant Stone; Ph.D. Candidate George Washington University
