Computer Science Education Research – a smattering of results

Carol Zander

• Threshold Concepts• Debugging• Software Design• Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

Threshold Concepts

Threshold concepts (Meyer and Land, 2005)

- Transformative- Integrative- Irreversible- Troublesome- Characteristic of the discipline

Threshold Concepts

For example:

Math: limit

Literature: irony

Physics: heat transfer

Economics: opportunity cost

Medicine: pain

Threshold Concepts

Good evidence that two specific concepts satisfy the criteria:

- Object-oriented programming

- Pointers/memory

Threshold Concepts – other work

Searching for threshold concepts and investigation overview (Eckerdal et al., 2006; Boustedt et al., 2007; Zander et al., 2008;

Thomas et al., 2009)

Learning troublesome concepts (McCartney et al., 2007)

Liminal spaces (Eckerdal et al., 2007, McCartney et al., 2007)

Integration associated with object-oriented programming (Sanders et al., 2008)

Transformations related to “abstraction” (Moström et al., 2008)

Transformations (Moström et al., 2009, Zander et al., 2009, Thomas et al., to appear)

Threshold Concepts – recent work

Harnessing Surprise: Tales from Students' Transformational Biographies   Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), 2010, to appear

Based on philosophical position that surprise causes learning …(MRI scans give evidence that memory and the learning of concepts is enhanced by surprise.)

… as educators, we should try and set up situations in which our students experience it more often.

Debugging

Debugging: Finding, Fixing and Flailing, A Multi-Institutional Study of Novice DebuggersComputer Science Education Journal, 2008

Figure shows quality of debugging strategies versus bugs fixed.

Student self-assessment of debugging ability shown in error bars.

Debugging

Journal, 2008

Debugging

Debugging: The Good, the Bad, and the Quirky –

a Qualitative Analysis of Novices’ Strategies Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), 2008

Debugging strategies

Gain domain knowledge Isolating the problem

Tracing, including: Mental, Print & Debugger

Pattern matching

Consider alternatives

Testing Environmental

Understanding code Work around problem

Using resources Just in Case

Using Tools Tinkering

Software Design

Categorizing Student Software Designs: Methods, results, and implicationsComputer Science Education Journal, 2005

Can Graduating Students Design Software?Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), 2006

Software Design

Large study – 22 researchers from 22 institutions, 4 countries (150 graduating senior designs)

Design task: Given a challenging design problem – Analyze, decompose and organize a task into meaningful and manageable parts

Software design categories

Nothing – little or no content

Restatement – restates design requirements

Skumtomte – small amount past restatement

First step – some significant work past restatement

Partial design – provides a description of the parts, and overview showing relationships, but incomplete

Complete design – well-developed solutions which includean understandable overview, part descriptions withexplicit communication between the parts

Can graduating students design software? NO

Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck studied mindsets about intelligence and academic success

Fixed mindset (fixed intelligence) – avoid challenges and perform worse academically

Grow mindset – intelligence can grow with effort and hard work

Take-away message: Don’t tell students they are successful because they are smart … emphasize hard work leads to success

Research done – “Saying is believing” exercise