A Study on the Impact of Multidisciplinary Collaboration on Computational Thinking

Abstract

This paper reports on a multi-semester study of the impact on student perceptions of their computational thinking abilities as a result of collaboration between students in computer science (CS) and journalism courses to solve a problem for a community partner, Habitat for Humanity. Interdisciplinary computing collaborations have become a popular mode of instruction in upper-level CS courses. In many cases, these collaborations have been with other STEM disciplines. However, there are non-STEM fields that have been transformed by computer science and can also serve as fruitful test beds for curricular innovation; journalism is one such field. In this study, undergraduate students in CS and journalism courses focused on creating a computational solution to address a real community need. The study investigates whether immersion in multidisciplinary collaborative experiences increases the computational thinking abilities of both CS and non-CS students. 41 CS students participated in the study alongside 96 students in a range of other STEM and non-STEM majors. Quantitative data were collected to gauge students' attainment of concepts and skills constitutive to computational thinking. Pre-test data indicate that CS students were no different from other STEM students in their own assessment of computational thinking and skills. Post-test data indicate that while all students made significant gains in self-assessment of skills and knowledge, CS majors fared significantly better than their peers. It is particularly noteworthy that CS majors' gains outpaced those of computer engineering majors. Further research is planned to gain additional insight into the possible reasons behind these results.