Researching the Impact of Cal Poly Classes on Computing Students Perceptions of Computer Ethics and Social Responsibility

The importance and impact of socio-technical systems are playing an increasing role in the education of computing students. Discussion of ethics and social responsibility has always been a tenant of computer science education; however, research has shown engineering and computer science students lose focus on these values over their engineering education. Cal Poly computing departments have taken steps to emphasize social responsibility and ethics through required and suggested courses. This project focuses on examining the values and beliefs of Cal Poly computing students, who were surveyed over Winter and Spring Quarters in 2022. This project is inspired by Dr. Cech’s work around disengagement in engineering education and her methods were used in this work to determine if Cal Poly computing students are disengaging from beliefs relating to social welfare and responsibly. The results of the survey of 71 Cal Poly computing students showed that overall Cal Poly students view beliefs relating to ethical and social responsibility as more important than engineering students from past research. Students perceived that the department viewed ethical and social issues as important, as well as their own personal views. It was found that students’ public welfare beliefs were higher farther along in their degree and students who had taken relevant classes also demonstrated higher public welfare beliefs. Demographic analysis did not reveal any relationship when studying students’ more general values outside of the engineering profession. This project demonstrates that the efforts the Cal Poly computing departments took have had a positive impact on student values. This work highlights how an intentional curriculum can have positive effects as well as discussing future areas of improvement

The UKICER 2022 Conference Poster: TechMate: A best practice toolkit for driving sustainable acceleration towards gender equality in technology disciplines in HEIs.

TechMate is a research project that is being developed to enhance gender balance in technology disciplines, in particular computing higher education in Ireland and beyond. Gender imbalance in computing education is a well-known issue: in Ireland, less than 15% of the student population in computer science, ICT and related disciplines are women. Despite a significant amount of research and practical work conducted in the recent decades, the problem still persists and this research initiative aims to improve the situation. Among the main aims of this project, there is a development of a toolkit to drive sustainable acceleration towards gender equality in computing fields. The toolkit is to contain practical repeatable actions for different levels of engagement for implementation by universities and other educational institutions. The research question has been formulated as follows: Can initiatives to improve recruitment and retention in computing higher education be disseminated in a way that encourages implementation and when used, can they have impact? To answer the research question, objectives were defined, which lead towards the development and evaluation of the toolkit. TechMate toolkit is based on the actions (which are practical, low level initiatives that have shown impact in enhancing recruitment and retention of women in computing courses) categorisation by Berry et al. (2022). This project is supervised by Prof. Sarah Jane Delany (TU Dublin), Dr. Susan McKeever (TU Dublin) and Prof. Brenda Murphy (University of Malta)

A Structural Equation Model Analysis of Computing Identity Sub-Constructs and Student Academic Persistence

This dissertation explores the impact of computing identity sub-constructs on the academic persistence of computing students. This research provides models, quantified relationships, and insights to increase the number of graduates with the intention of pursuing a career in computing. Despite the growing significance of computer science and all the projected new jobs in computer science, many university and college programs suffer from low student persistence rates. One theoretical framework used to better understand persistence in other STEM disciplines is disciplinary identity. Disciplinary identity refers to how students see themselves with respect to a discipline. This study examines the effects of computing identity sub-constructs (performance/competence, recognition, interest, and sense of belonging) on the academic persistence of computing students. A quantitative analysis with three phases was performed for this study. First, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation model (SEM) analysis were performed to validate and explore the relationship between sub-constructs in the computing identity model. Second, a multigroup SEM was performed to estimate the impact of the identity sub-constructs on persistence for students with diverse demographics in this case by gender and level of education. Third, a time-series SEM were used to investigate the impact of identity development on computing persistence over time. The findings indicated that students\u27 academic persistence was directly influenced by their interest as the most significant factor. In addition, performance, competence, recognition, and sense of belonging contributed to students’ identity development and academic persistence. Results of the second analysis indicated identity sub-constructs contributed differently to academic persistence among freshman and senior students; however, no significant differences were found between male and female students. Ultimately, the last analysis with time-series data indicated that interest and competence/performance, as individual factors had the strongest direct impacts on persistence over time. Considering student identity in understanding academic persistence in computing programs may provide a meaningful lens of analysis for institutes and their curriculum and extracurricular planning methods. In addition, the development of students’ self-beliefs provides ways for increasing the number of graduates with increased likelihood of pursuing computing careers

Teaching Natural Computation

This paper consists of a discussion of the potential impact on computer science education of regarding computation as a property of the natural world, rather than just a property of artifacts specifically created for the purpose of computing. Such a perspective is becoming increasingly important: new computing paradigms based on the natural computational properties of the world are being created, scientific questions are being answered using computational ideas, and philosophical debates on the nature of computation are being formed. This paper discusses how computing education might react to these developments, goes on to discuss how these ideas can help to define computer science as a discipline, and reflects on our experience at Kent in teaching these subjects

The Development of E-Learning Systems Application Based On Cloud Computing For Higher Education

An E-Learning systems used internet technology to provide data base used for the activity of studying for higher education institution. In order to achieve the way of communication through information technology, cloud computing is a new science in the field of informatics that make the activity more fluent and easy to use. Managing students through e-learning will give positive impact to the development of e-learning systems.This paper discusses about the development of E-Learning Systems Application Based On Cloud Computing as an immerge of information technology for higher education. There are some models of E-Learning that can be applied to help students and lectures in the activity of education with terms of collaborating, coordinating and inspecting.The results expected with this paper is that there is more preparation for higher education in providing and building their own systems by installing some important aspects such as security, viability and quick response to make internet as a smart media in achieving the goal of higher eduaction by using internet

Preparation of assessment, learning and teaching materials for dyslexic students that benefit all students: presentation of results from an empirical study

The purpose of this paper is to present results from empirical research with dyslexic students in Higher Education that focuses on the impact of dyslexia on the study of computing. HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) statistics suggest that Computer Science is one of the subjects to which dyslexic students are attracted. This study was motivated by the question as to whether there might be anything particular about the discipline of computer programming that makes it either beneficial or problematic for dyslexic students. In addition, we were also interested in dyslexic students' general experience of assessment, learning and teaching, as well as their views of proposed accessibility guidelines. The Greek word 'dyslexia' means 'difficulty with words'. The British Dyslexia Association (2007) describes dyslexia as “a combination of abilities and difficulties that affect the learning process in one or more of reading, spelling and writing”. Dyslexic students are a substantial and growing proportion of the overall student population, for whom learning materials should be made accessible. It is argued that good practice in approaches in assessment learning and teaching for disabled students is generally good practice for all students (Brown, Adams, 2006). Many of the adjustments, such as well prepared handouts, instructions given in writing as well as verbally, notes put on-line, and variety and flexibility in forms of assessment, are simply good teaching and learning practices from which all students can benefit

Novice programmers and the problem description effect.

It is often debated whether a problem presented in a straightforward minimalist fashion is better, or worse, for learning than the same problem presented with a real-life or concrete context. The presentation, contextualization, or problem description has been well studied over several decades in disciplines such as mathematics education and psychology; however, little has been published in the field of computing education. In psychology it has been found that not only the presence of context, but the type of context can have dramatic results on problem success. In mathematics education it has been demonstrated that there are non-mathematical factors in problem presentation that can affect success in solving the problem and learning. The contextual background of a problem can also impact cognitive load, which should be considered when evaluating the effects of context. Further, it has been found that regarding cognitive load, computer science has unique characteristics compared to other disciplines, with the consequence that results from other disciplines may not apply to computer science, thus requiring investigation within computer science. This paper presents a multi-national, multi-institutional study of the effects of problem contextualization on novice programmer success in a typical CS1 exercise

Assessing the Impact of a CSforALL Research-Practice Partnership Using the PROSPER Framework: A Case Study of the Chicago Alliance for Equity in Computer Science (CAFÉCS)

The Chicago Alliance for Equity in Computer Science (CAFÉCS) Research Practice Partnership (RPP) has been working for more than a decade towards their mission to engage in research and development that enables Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to ensure that all students in Chicago participate in engaging, relevant, and rigorous computing experiences, increase opportunities for all students to pursue computing pathways and prepare all students for the future of work. The partnership engaged in an iterative design process to develop a framework for understanding the areas of RPP impact on a district. This paper applies the PROSPER framework to the CAFÉCS case study by deductively coding 26 RPP-led publications and 10 grant awards. The results of this analysis suggest that the RPP was able to make significant impact in the areas of Programs, Research, Organizational Structure, and Policy, leading to Equitable Results for students. We present the PROSPER Framework as a practical framework that other education RPPs can use to assess their own impact on their partner districts. We discuss further questions and areas of interest as means to better understand the interconnected nature of these different areas of impact