Characterizing Graduateness in Computing Education

In my research, I employ a highly qualitative, narrative methodology to explore the sense students make of their own educational experiences within their wider learning trajectories. By taking such a holistic perspective on a Computing Education, I hope to be able to identify and distil aspects of successful Computing programs, whose effects may only emerge over time

Then and Now: Past Experience Echoed in University Computing Teachers’ Current Practice

Individual experiences, and the sense we make of them, shape who we are. For educators, experiential narratives affect both their day-to-day practice – the way they teach – and also the kind and quality of changes they make to their practice. In this work, we draw on data collected as part of a longitudinal study for the Sharing Practice project to explore how teachers’ experiences are “echoed” in their current practice. We describe the concept of ‘pedagogic stance’ and propose ways in which it may be identified. We suggest that an understanding of pedagogic stance may enable researchers to affect educators’ practice more effectively

ACM Curriculum Reports: A Pedagogic Perspective

In this paper, we illuminate themes that emerged in interviews with participants in the major curriculum recommendation efforts: we characterize the way the computing community interacts with and influences these reports and introduce the term “pedagogic projection” to describe implicit assumptions of how these reports will be used in practice. We then illuminate how this perceived use has changed over time and may affect future reports

Examining Graduateness through Narratives

Graduateness as a concept describes attributes that all graduates should have developed by the time they leave university. In my work, I take a different view and explore graduateness as constructed through graduates’ individual narratives

Characterising Graduateness in Computing Education: A Narrative Approach

This thesis examines the concept of graduateness in computing education. Graduateness is related to efforts to articulate the outcomes of a university education. It is commonly defined as the attributes all graduates should develop by the time they graduate regardless of university attended or discipline studied (Glover, Law and Youngman 2002). This work takes a different perspective grounded in disciplinary and institutional contexts. It aims to explore how graduates make sense of their experiences studying computing within their wider learning trajectories. The research presented here uses a narrative approach. Whilst narrative methodologies are not commonly used in computing education, people construct stories both to make sense of their experiences and to integrate the "past, present, and an anticipated future" (McAdams 1985, p.120). Stories are then a particularly appropriate way of examining the sense people make of their learning experiences. This work draws on narrative interviews with graduates from the School of Computing at the University of Kent and Olin College of Engineering in the United States. It contributes a new perspective about the effect of a computing education beyond short-term outcome measures and proposes several analytic constructs that expose significant aspects in participants' learning experiences. In this, it describes themes related to students' acquisition of disciplinary knowledge and examines the evolution of their stories of learning computing over time

Exploring Models and Theories of Spatial Skills in CS through a Multi-National Study

Background and Context. The relationship between spatial skills and computing science success has been demonstrated at multiple institutions. ICER has reacted positively to two theories for why this relationship exists, by both Parkinson & Cutts and Margulieux. However, only limited work has been done to validate these theories, and more confirmatory research about the relationship between spatial skills and module grades in CS is necessary. Objectives. We wish to validate two dimensions of existing theories for the relationship between spatial skills and CS: does CS learning improve spatial skills (as has been observed in other domains, such as physics) as Parkinson & Cutts propose, and does the relationship with grades predominantly apply to students with less prior programming fluency when they begin their learning, as Margulieux proposes. We also wish to contribute more data to the existing set of correlations between spatial skills and measures of CS success (replication). Method. We conducted a multi-institutional, multi-national project to capture prior programming experience and module grades in CS at three institutions, as well as conducting spatial skills tests at three points during the academic year. We compare spatial skills results with module grades, we examine changes in spatial skills over a period of CS learning and we explore whether the correlations between spatial skills and module grades apply for students at all levels of prior programming fluency. Findings. We found that spatial skills correlated with module grades at each institution, spatial skills improved over the first semester of teaching (though not the second semester, and at different rates in different institutions) and students with lower self-reported prior programming fluency exhibited much stronger correlations between spatial skills and grades than students with greater programming fluency. Implications. This work provides additional evidence that spatial skills are correlated with introductory CS outcomes. It also takes steps towards validating existing theories for the relationship by demonstrating that spatial skills can be trained through CS learning and students with lower levels of prior programming fluency are more likely to rely on spatial skills in their CS learning

A First Look at the Year in Computing

In this paper, we discuss students’ expectations and experiences in the first term of the Year in Computing, a new programme for non-computing majors at the University of Kent, a public research university in the UK. We focus on the effect of students’ home discipline on their experiences in the programme and situate this work within the context of wider efforts to make the study of computing accessible to a broader range of students