Second year computer science and IT students' experience of participation in the discipline

Abstract

Student identity, in relation to discipline and study cohort, is an important research area that has emerged during the last decade. Sense of identity is linked to student perseverance, satisfaction with one's studies, and retention.In this paper, we describe second year computing students' experiences of participation, and discuss participation as a part of our broader goal to understand computing students' identity development. The focus on participation is inspired by Lave and Wenger's social theory of learning. Phenomenography is used for the primary data analysis.Our main result is a new outcome space describing second year computing students' experiences of participation in problem solving as organising and conducting the process, optimising, considering dependencies, as well as considering classes of problems and solutions. Insights contribute to a better understanding of the interaction between learners, teachers and curricula, as well as of the identities students are adopting.