A Systematic Review Exploring the Differences in Reported Data for Pre-College Educational Activities for Computer Science, Engineering, and Other STEM Disciplines

Adrienne Decker,Monica McGill

doi:10.3390/educsci9020069

Adrienne Decker, Monica McGill

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9020069

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Abstract

There has been considerable investment in pre-college educational interventions for all areas of STEM (including computer science). The goal of many of these initiatives is to engage and interest students early in their educational career. In this study, a systematic literature review was undertaken to determine the demographic and program data collected and reported for the field of computing education and for other STEM disciplines for activities that were not designed as part of the formal in-class curriculum (e.g., outreach activities). A comparison-contrast analysis of the resulting 342 articles found similarities and key differences in the reporting of this data as well as overarching characteristics of missing or incomplete reporting across disciplines. Authors from both fields reported equally well in the four categories studied: information about evaluation, participant gender, participant race and/or ethnicity, and activity demographics. However, the computing education articles were more likely to have clearly stated research questions and comparative analysis based on demographic characteristics. They were less likely to include the number of participants in the study, participant age/grade level, socioeconomic status, disability information, location of intervention, and instructor demographics. Through this analysis, it was determined that reporting can be improved across all disciplines to improve the quantity of data needed to replicate studies and to provide complete data sets that provide for the comparison of collected data.

Highlights

When President Obama publicly announced the Computer Science for All initiative in January2016 [1], it consolidated a growing movement within the computing education community in the United States (U.S.) to bring computing into schools prior to university [2]
There has been a growth in the number of states in the U.S adopting standards for computing education in primary and secondary (K–12) schools, with all but six states having adopted some sort of computing policy or standards as of the 2018 State of Computer Science Education report compiled by Code.org [3]
An experience report is a common format in computing education conferences and contains information about an educational intervention and reports about its success or failure, but does not report the results of an actual research study

Summary

Introduction

When President Obama publicly announced the Computer Science for All initiative in January2016 [1], it consolidated a growing movement within the computing education community in the United States (U.S.) to bring computing into schools prior to university [2]. There has been a growth in the number of states in the U.S adopting standards for computing education in primary and secondary (K–12) schools, with all but six states having adopted some sort of computing policy or standards as of the 2018 State of Computer Science Education report compiled by Code.org [3]. Organizations such as the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) and ISTE have released standards for learning not just about technology, but about computing and computational thinking at the K–12 level [4,5].

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