A Baseline Analysis of the Research Questions of NSF-Funded Research-Practice Partnerships and the Knowledge They Generate

Abstract

This study will present a baseline analysis of the types of research questions generated by 61 Computer Science (CS) for All: research-practice partnership (RPP) projects in computing education, providing insights into the types of research questions being pursued by RPPs with the intent to assess the potential knowledge being generated through these projects. These RPPs are designed to both democratize research and produce generalizable knowledge related to broadening participation in computing education (BPC). Thus the questions being pursued should reflect pressing needs of CS education practice. Through a review of 208 research questions, this study examined the research questions for the types of knowledge generated and by the focus area of the question. The latter set of codes were then broken into further subcategories for analysis. Results demonstrate a relative lack of focus on broadening participation in computing (BPC) or RPP function, which may impede the completion of CS research and implementation goals. Results also appear to demonstrate very little focus on investigating the broader applicability of research findings. By encouraging greater inclusion of BPC and RPP research questions as well as greater focus on scalability of findings in future RPPs, CS-related goals can potentially be more efficiently achieved. Future work will include tracking changes in research questions and identifying research questions addressing problems of practice specific to the practitioner partners in RPPs.