Acitation analysis of the SIGCSE 2007 proceedings

This paper identifies the most commonly cited conferences, journals and books among the 1398 citations made in the 122 publications of the SIGCSE 2007 proceedings. The SIGCSE 2007 authors cited a very large array of conferences, journals and books, but the majority are only cited within a single paper. There are only a very small set of journals and conferences cited frequently. Most books cited are concerned with technical information or are textbooks. Only 2% of books are concerned with computer science education and 23% with education in general. The picture that emerges from this citation analysis is that the SIGCSE community does not have a substantial core set of educational literature. Also, the epistemology of the SIGCSE community is primarily objectivist, with a focus on content, rather than a constructivist, student-centered focus on learning

The backwash effect on SQL skills grading

This paper examines the effect of grading approaches for SQL query formulation on students' learning strategies. The way that students are graded in a subject has a significant impact on their learning approach, and it is crucial that graded tasks are carefully designed and implemented to inculcate a deep learning experience, An online examination system is described and evaluated. Copyright 2004 ACM

Going SOLO to assess novice programmers

This paper explores the programming knowledge of novices using Biggs' SOLO taxonomy. It builds on previous work of Lister et al. (2006) and addresses some of the criticisms of that work. The research was conducted by studying the exam scripts for 120 introductory programming students, in which three specific questions were analyzed using the SOLO taxonomy. The study reports the following four findings: when the instruction to students used by Lister et al. - "In plain English, explain what the following segment of Java code does" - is replaced with a less ambiguous instruction, many students still provide multistructural responses; students are relatively consistent in the SOLO level of their answers; student responses on SOLO reading tasks correlate positively with performance on writing tasks; postgraduates students manifest a higher level of thinking than undergraduates. Copyright 2008 ACM

Driving learning via criterion-referenced assessment using Bloom’s Taxonomy

In this paper we describe our use of the criterion-referenced approach to assessment, where the criteria are based upon Bloom’s taxonomy. In our Bloom-based assessments scheme, all students in the class must satisfactorily complete a set of assessment tasks designed to demonstrate competence at the Knowledge and Comprehension levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Any student who is content with the minimal passing grade need not complete any more assessment items. Other students, who elect to seek a higher grade, must also complete assessment tasks at the Application and Analysis levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Student’s who satisfactorily complete these tasks, and stop at this point, attain one of the two middle passing grades. Finally, students who elect to seek the highest grade must go on to satisfactorily complete further assessment tasks, at the “Synthesis” and “Evaluation” levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Each student is free to decide for him/herself what grade they will try to achieve. They are also free to approach the lecturer for advice, but in practise few do so. We have applied this assessment system in seven semesters of teaching, five semesters of teaching introductory programming, and two semesters of teaching introductory databases. After we had used this assessment system for a single semester, to teach introductory programming, we published descriptions of this assessment approach (Lister and Leaney 2003a, 2003b). This paper differs from those earlier papers in two ways. First, the earlier papers were aimed at members of the information technology community, and those teaching programming in particular, whereas this paper summarises the broad structure of the assessment scheme in way that is accessible to academics in non-computing disciplines. Second, this paper benefits from six more semesters of experience with this approach to assessment

An Exploration of Novice Programmers' Comprehension of Conditionals in Imperative and Functional Programming

2Students of introductory programming courses are expected to develop higher-order thinking skills to inspect, understand and modify code. However, although novices can correctly write small programs, they appear to lack a more abstract, comprehensive grasp of basic constructs, such as conceiving the overall effect of alternative conditional flows. This work takes a little-explored perspective on the comprehension of tiny programs by asking students to reason about reversing conditionals in either an imperative or a functional context. More specifically, besides deciding if the given constructs can be reversed, students had to justify their choice by writing a reversing program or by providing suitable counterexamples. The students’ answers to four reversibility questions have been analysed through the lens of the SOLO taxonomy. 45% of students correctly identified the reversibility for the four code items; furthermore, more than 50% of each cohort were able to provide correct justifications for at least three of their four answers. Most incorrect answers were due to failures to consider border cases or to edit the conditional expressions appropriately to reverse the construct. Differences in comprehension between functional and imperative languages are explored indicating the explicit else paths of the functional examples facilitate comprehension compared with the implicit else (no update) of its imperative counterpart.partially_openopenMirolo, Claudio; Izu, CruzMirolo, Claudio; Izu, Cru

Performance and Consistency in Learning to Program

Performance and consistency play a large role in learning. Decreasing the effort that one invests into course work may have short-term benefits such as reduced stress. However, as courses progress, neglected work accumulates and may cause challenges with learning the course content at hand. In this work, we analyze students' performance and consistency with programming assignments in an introductory programming course. We study how performance, when measured through progress in course assignments, evolves throughout the course, study weekly fluctuations in students' work consistency, and contrast this with students' performance in the course final exam. Our results indicate that whilst fluctuations in students' weekly performance do not distinguish poor performing students from well performing students with a high accuracy, more accurate results can be achieved when focusing on the performance of students on individual assignments which could be used for identifying struggling students who are at risk of dropping out of their studies.Peer reviewe

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Single hadron response measurement and calorimeter jet energy scale uncertainty with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

The uncertainty on the calorimeter energy response to jets of particles is derived for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). First, the calorimeter response to single isolated charged hadrons is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo simulation using proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of sqrt(s) = 900 GeV and 7 TeV collected during 2009 and 2010. Then, using the decay of K_s and Lambda particles, the calorimeter response to specific types of particles (positively and negatively charged pions, protons, and anti-protons) is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo predictions. Finally, the jet energy scale uncertainty is determined by propagating the response uncertainty for single charged and neutral particles to jets. The response uncertainty is 2-5% for central isolated hadrons and 1-3% for the final calorimeter jet energy scale.Comment: 24 pages plus author list (36 pages total), 23 figures, 1 table, submitted to European Physical Journal

Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing at least one isolated lepton (electron or muon), jets and large missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy s√=8 TeV collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are set on supersymmetric particle masses for various supersymmetric models. Depending on the model, the search excludes gluino masses up to 1.32 TeV and squark masses up to 840 GeV. Limits are also set on the parameters of a minimal universal extra dimension model, excluding a compactification radius of 1/R c = 950 GeV for a cut-off scale times radius (ΛR c) of approximately 30