Computing skills for science foundation candidates

Abstract

Foundation programmes at Rhodes University are designed for candidates who matriculate from under-resourced rural and township schools in South Africa. Most of these students have not used computers before. Unfortunately universities in South Africa often take it for granted that all students who enroll into tertiary education have covered the basic introductory skills in computing during their primary, secondary or high school education. Computer illiterate candidates are therefore left to self-develop, resulting in poorly prepared students who would not attempt any computer related studies in future.There is often a danger that students who enroll into foundation programmes are not motivated because of the discriminatory nature in which the programmes are designed (for black South African candidates from under-resourced rural and township schools). This paper presents a novel approach to improving computer literacy courses at universities, and demonstrates its success using data from the past four years of implementation. The aim of the study has been primarily to improve student attitude towards foundation programmes, particularly, student motivation towards computing skills when there is a stigma attached to enrolment. A secondary aim of the study is to investigate the most appropriate curriculum between the adopted and the proposed needs-driven approach, where students and the lecturer negotiate the relevancy of each skill offered. This paper presents both aims simultaneously by regularly involving students in curriculum development during the course of the year.Six computing skills were commonly identified as relevant to first year students over the years of our study. We however do not conclusively prescribe these at this stage but rather present them as a baseline upon which shared agreements may arise towards connecting students to the future. We describe the relevant content for each skill, the amount of time required to master each skill, the contributions of each skill towards the final course credit and the time of the year when each skill is relevant to students. Generally, the needs-driven approach calibrates a culture of success and deep learning in students, which in turn yields direct benefits, not only in terms of marks, but also in terms of students' lifelong computing skills.