Comparing importance of knowledge and professional skill areas for engineering programming utilizing a two group Delphi survey

All engineering careers require some level of programming proficiency. However, beginning programming classes are challenging for many students. Difficulties have been well-documented and contribute to high drop-out rates which prevent students from pursuing engineering. While many approaches have been tried to improve the performance of students and reduce the dropout rate, continued work is needed. This research seeks to re-examine what items are critical for programming education and how those might inform what is taught in introductory programming classes (CS1). Following trends coming from accreditation and academic boards on the importance of professional skills, we desire to rank knowledge and professional skill areas in one list. While programming curricula focus almost exclusively on knowledge areas, integrating critical professional skill areas could provide students with a better high-level understanding of what engineering encompasses. Enhancing the current knowledge centric syllabi with critical professional skills should allow students to have better visibility into what an engineering job might be like at the earliest classes in the engineering degree. To define our list of important professional skills, we use a two-group, three-round Delphi survey to build consensus ranked lists of knowledge and professional skill areas from industry and academic experts. Performing a gap analysis between the expert groups shows that industry experts focus more on professional skills then their academic counterparts. We use this resulting list to recommend ways to further integrate professional skills into engineering programming curriculum

School-based Understanding of Human Rights in Four Countries: A Commonwealth Study

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

A Framework for Improving Information Assurance Education

As a field of growing importance, information assurance is dedicated to protecting our information systems and related assets. In order for this field to deliver on its promise, effective information assurance education, both in the classroom and beyond, is essential. However, relatively little empirical research has been done on the effectiveness of information assurance education in the classroom. Faculty developing and teaching information assurance curricula can choose from differing industry and government standards as well as a range of methods for delivering this education. As a first step toward building a research framework for better assessing the effectiveness of information assurance education, this paper describes an initial research study of information assurance curricula and related teaching methods. Surveys and interviews of faculty teaching information assurance were conducted to determine their assessment of existing standards and the best means for improving the educational experience for students. The results obtained provide the beginning of a framework for further research in this area

Defining the Competencies, Programming Languages, and Assessments for an Introductory Computer Science Course

The purpose of this study was to define the competencies, programming languages, and assessments for an introductory computer science course at a small private liberal arts university. Three research questions were addressed that involved identifying the competencies, programming languages, and assessments that academic and industry experts in California’s Central Valley felt most important and appropriate for an introduction to computer science course. The Delphi methodology was used to collect data from the two groups of experts with various backgrounds related to computing. The goal was to find consensus among the individual groups to best define aspects that would best comprise an introductory CS0 course for majors and non-majors. The output would be valuable information to be considered by curriculum designers who are developing a new program in software engineering at the institution. The process outlined would also be useful to curriculum designers in other fields and geographic regions who attempt to address their local education needs. Four rounds of surveys were conducted. The groups of experts were combined in the first round to rate the items in the straw models determined from the literature and add additional components when necessary. The academic and industry groupings were separated for the remainder of the study so that a curriculum designer could determine not only the items deemed most important, but also their relative importance among the two distinct groups. The experts selected items in each of the three categories in the second round to reduce the possibilities for subsequent rounds. The groups were then asked to rank the items in each of the three categories for the third round. A fourth round was held as consensus was not reached by either of the groups for any of the categories as determined by Kendall’s W. The academic experts reached consensus on a list of ranked competencies in the final round and showed a high degree of agreement on lists of ranked programming languages and assessments. Kendall’s W, values, however, were just short of the required 0.7 threshold for consensus on these final two items. The industry experts did not reach consensus and showed low agreement on their recommendations for competencies, programming languages, and assessments

Computational Thinking in Education: Where does it fit? A systematic literary review

Computational Thinking (CT) has been described as an essential skill which everyone should learn and can therefore include in their skill set. Seymour Papert is credited as concretising Computational Thinking in 1980 but since Wing popularised the term in 2006 and brought it to the international community's attention, more and more research has been conducted on CT in education. The aim of this systematic literary review is to give educators and education researchers an overview of what work has been carried out in the domain, as well as potential gaps and opportunities that still exist. Overall it was found in this review that, although there is a lot of work currently being done around the world in many different educational contexts, the work relating to CT is still in its infancy. Along with the need to create an agreed-upon definition of CT lots of countries are still in the process of, or have not yet started, introducing CT into curriculums in all levels of education. It was also found that Computer Science/Computing, which could be the most obvious place to teach CT, has yet to become a mainstream subject in some countries, although this is improving. Of encouragement to educators is the wealth of tools and resources being developed to help teach CT as well as more and more work relating to curriculum development. For those teachers looking to incorporate CT into their schools or classes then there are bountiful options which include programming, hands-on exercises and more. The need for more detailed lesson plans and curriculum structure however, is something that could be of benefit to teachers

Engaging Underrepresented High School students in Data Driven Storytelling: An Examination of Learning Experiences and Outcomes for a Cohort of Rising Seniors Enrolled in the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program (GEAR UP)

Background: Upward trends in data-oriented careers threaten to further increase the underrepresentation of both females and individuals from racial minority groups in programs focused on data analysis and applied statistics. To begin to develop the necessary skills for a data-oriented career, project-based learning seems the most promising given its focus on real-world activities that are aimed at engaging student interest and enthusiasm. Method: Using pre and post survey data, the present study examines student background characteristics, learning experiences and course outcomes for a cohort of 33 rising high school seniors involved in a two-week, accelerated version of a project-based data analysis and applied statistics curriculum. Results: On average, students rated the experience as rewarding and the vast majority (78.1%) felt that they had accomplished more than they had expected. Based on responses to both the pre and post course surveys, roughly half of the students reported increases in confidence in applied skills (i.e. developing a research question, managing data, choosing the correct statistical test, effectively presenting research results, and conducting a statistical analysis of data), while more than 80% reported increased confidence in writing code to run statistical analyses. Fully 84.4% of students reported interest in one or more follow-up courses with interest in computer programming being endorsed by the largest number of students (53.1%). Conclusions: These findings support previous research showing that real-world, project-based experiences afford the best hope for achieving the kind of analytic and statistical literacy necessary for meaningful engagement in research, problem solving and professional development

Eagle Vision : new directions in K-12 GIS

Eagle Vision is an NSF-funded three-year project that instructs High School teachers working in tribal schools in GIS and GIT, and in GIS-based curriculum design. Integration of GIS into the secondary level classroom has faced many barriers, and despite extensive efforts on the part of Eagle Vision to circumvent these hurdles, many of them appeared. An additional problem regarding spatial literacy became apparent. Overall, however, the program was successful in increasing use of GIS and GIT, and provided crucial information that will help improve teacher professional training in the area of GIS

Information/Systems and Quantitative Core Courses in AACSB Accredited Business Schools

During the 1994 academic year, a survey was conducted of institutions accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). The purpose of the survey was to determine the nature and characteristics of the quantitative and Information Systems core courses. The results, which were contrasted to those of a similar survey done in 1987, provide a snapshot of the current status of these core classes, reveal evolutionary changes, and portend possible future trends

Attitudes of Students and Practitioners Regarding Ethical Acceptability of Accounting Transactions

This study reports the findings of a study assessing the acceptability differences in decisions made by Certified Public Accounting practitioners (CPA) and students studying to become CPAs. The study responds to researchers’ call for additional research on topics related to accounting decision ethics. Modified managerial and accounting recognition scenarios were used to collect the acceptability of ethical judgments. The analysis employs factor analysis to affirm whether the scenarios are mana­gerial or accounting recognition decisions. The analyses further divides the managerial decisions into either revenue or expense related. The accounting recognition decisions are further divided into those involving an accounting manipulation or inventory related. Students’ acceptability of the accounting transactions was far harsher than the practitioners. However, both students and practitioners considered the accounting scenarios to be unethical. Both students and practitioners judged the managerial revenue scenarios to be ethical but the managerial expense scenarios to be moderately unethical. In addition to the ethical acceptability of accounting transaction, student and practitioner demographic data including age, work experience and academic credentials are investigated to explain the differences