University-level Computer Science Research Articles

An EEG study on college students’ attention levels in a blended computer science class

ABSTRACT Blended learning has been widely integrated in college-level computer science education. Despite evidence about benefits of blended learning, students’ in-class activities remain underexplored. To afford effective blended learning experience, supporting students in both modalities is essential. This study thus took an initial step to fill the gap by investigating college students’ in-class activities in a blended course from the perspective of attention. Using non-intrusive electroencephalography (EEG) instruments to collect attentional data, this study found students’ attention in in-class activities positively correlated with their learning gains. Students’ attention also varied across in-class activities, reaching a higher level in group discussions than in pre-tests and lectures. Linear regression analysis indicated students’ length of time spent viewing online resources and their pre-test scores significantly predicted their in-class attention. The findings of the study provide insight into course design and facilitation for effective blended computer science courses.

Reading the Room

When in front of a classroom, a skilled teacher can read the room, identifying when students are engaged, frustrated, distracted, etc. In recent years we have seen significant changes in the traditional classroom, with virtual classes becoming a normal learning environment. Reasons for this change are the increased popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and the disruptions imposed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is difficult for teachers to read the room in these virtual classrooms, and researchers have begun to look at using sensors to provide feedback to help inform teaching practices. The study presented here sought to ground classroom sensor data in the form of electrodermal activities (EDA) captured using a wrist-worn sensing platform (Empatica E4), with observations about students' emotional engagement in the class. We collected a dataset from eleven students over eight lectures in college-level computer science classes. We trained human annotators who provided ground truth information about student engagement based on in-class observations. Inspired by related work in the field, we implemented an automated data analysis framework, which we used to explore momentary assessments of student engagement in classrooms. Our findings surprised us because we found no significant correlation between the sensor data and our trained observers' data. In this paper, we present our study and framework for automated engagement assessment, and report on our findings that indicate some of the challenges in deploying current technology for real-world, automated momentary assessment of student engagement in the classroom. We offer reflections on our findings and discuss ways forward toward an automated reading the room approach.

General and specialist vocabulary knowledge as predictors of academic success in EMI university programs

Abstract The current study aimed to examine the contribution of general and specialist vocabulary knowledge to undergraduate students’ academic achievement in university courses which are delivered in English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in non-English speaking countries. To this end, the scores of 106 Arab undergraduates on a general vocabulary test (GVT) and on a computer science specialist vocabulary test (CSSVT) were examined in comparison with their final grades on a university-level computer science course, which they studied in English. The results showed a significant and positive correlation between the students’ scores on the GVT and the CSSVT and their final course grades. Additionally, it was found that the combined scores of the two tests can explain 16.1% of the variance in the students’ final course grades. Hence, the general and specialist vocabulary knowledge can predict students’ academic achievement in EMI courses. The results are discussed in relation to the existing literature. Pedagogical implications are presented and directions for future research are recommended.

Predictive effects of creative abilities and attitudes on performance in university-level computer science courses.

Predictive effects of creative abilities and attitudes on performance in university-level computer science courses.

Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial of Student Performance in Parallel Programming using a New Measurement Technique

There are many paradigms available to address the unique and complex problems introduced with parallel programming. These complexities have implications for computer science education as ubiquitous multi-core computers drive the need for programmers to understand parallelism. One major obstacle to student learning of parallel programming is that there is very little human factors evidence comparing the different techniques to one another, so there is no clear direction on which techniques should be taught and how. We performed a randomized controlled trial using 88 university-level computer science student participants performing three identical tasks to examine the question of whether or not there are measurable differences in programming performance between two paradigms for concurrent programming: threads compared to process-oriented programming based on Communicating Sequential Processes. We measured both time on task and programming accuracy using an automated token accuracy map (TAM) technique. Our results showed trade-offs between the paradigms using both metrics and the TAMs provided further insight about specific areas of difficulty in comprehension.

Computer science and engineering: utilizing action research and lesson study

ABSTRACTThis article explores one group’s use of action research (AR) and lesson study in three US university-level computer science courses affecting 85 undergraduate computer science and engineering students. It offers an overview of three areas including AR, lesson study, and engineering soft skills. The research group identified a problem: undergraduate engineering student soft skill understanding. The group collaborated to enhance participant engagement with this problem by utilizing one lesson focused on soft skills over three research lesson iterations in three distinct university semesters (2017-2018). Field notes were the main data collection method. Observational field notes were recorded in the three research lesson iterations, and themes from the notes were identified. The group valued peer interactions, and the research lesson adaptations as well as pedagogical changes were based on evidence. Four themes were identified, and participant comments were considered as the lessons became more focused . The research group argues that AR and lesson study are separate and distinct ventures based on this yearlong experience, which is counter to some other literature presented. Implications are large for all stakeholders interested in AR, lesson study, soft skill utilization, conflict management, and participant learning impact. Possibilities for enhanced participant engagement exists with honed lesson pedagogy.

Teaching quantum computing in college level computer science programs

As quantum computers are becoming available for experiments, their enormous potential is being recognized among college communities. The goal of introducing quantum computing in college level compu...

Perspectives of Blockchain Technology, its Relation to the Cloud and its Potential Role in Computer Science Education

Blockchain ledgers and the Cloud are a perfect match. On the one hand, there is an inherent requirement for multiple separate authentication nodes to validate every Blockchain transaction with each node requiring substantial encryption calculation capability. On the other hand, massive economies of scale can bring down the cost per transaction, and provide service continuity. Additionally, the Cloud provides a perfect incubator for proof-of-concept projects. This paper considers the future implications of Blockchain, as the concept of disintermediated trustless ledgers stimulates the imagination of computer scientists and innovators. The Cloud’s role in implementing this new paradigm is also highlighted, as a new decentralized P2P-Cloud model. Finally, this paper discusses how Blockchain may be integrated into the university level computer science and information technology curriculum.

Learning From Summaries: Supporting e-Learning Activities by Means of Document Summarization

e-Learning platforms allow users with different skills to explore large collections of electronic documents and annotate them with notes and highlights. Generating summaries of these document collections is potentially useful for gaining insights into teaching materials. However, most existing summarizers are general purpose. Thus, they do not consider neither annotations nor user skills during the document summarization process. This paper studies the application of a state-of-the-art summarization system, namely, the itemset-based summarizer (ItemSum), in an e-learning context. The summarizer produces an ordered sequence of key phrases extracted from a teaching document. The aim of this paper is threefold: 1) evaluate the usefulness of the generated summaries for supporting individual and collective learning activities in a real context; 2) understand to what extent document highlights, annotations, and user skill levels can be used to drive the summarization process; and 3) generate multiple summaries of the same document tailored to users with different skill levels. To accomplish task 1), a crowd-sourcing experience of evaluation of the generated summaries was conducted by involving the students of a B.S. course given by a technical university. The results show that the automatically generated summaries reflect, to a large extent, the students’ expectations. Hence, they can be useful for supporting learning activities in university-level computer science courses. To address task 2), three extended versions of the ItemSum summarizer, driven by highlights, annotations, and user skill levels, respectively, have been proposed, and their performance improvements with respect to the baseline version have been validated on benchmark documents. Finally, to accomplish task 3), multiple summaries of the same benchmark documents have been generated by considering only the annotations made by the users with a different skill level. The results confirm that the summary content reflects the level of expertise of the targeted users.

Computing for the social good

Computing for the social good is a movement that aims to broaden participation in computing by offering opportunities to apply computer science to social causes in higher education (Buckley, Nordlinger, & Subramanian, 2008; Goldweber et al., 2011). We have extended this movement to K-12, and added perspectives from Latina/o critical race theory, an analytic tool to critically examine how power relations shape Latino's educational experiences (Yosso, 2006). Our focus is on Latinos, who are the fastest growing ethnic minority population in the United States (U.S. Census, 2010), but are vastly underrepresented in computer science (CS). They are 16% of AP test takers, but only 1% of the AP Computer Science test takers; those that took it scored far below their peers (College Board, 2011). Although Latinos make up 19% of all US college students ages 18--24 (Lopez & Fry, 2013), the Computer Research Association's 2013 Taulbee Survey found that Latinos earned just 6% of CS bachelors degrees, and less than 2% of students who enrolled or completed a PhD in CS were Latino/a. And in 2010, Latinos made up only 4.6% of computer and information scientists in the labor force (National Science Foundation, 2014). In this abstract, we describe CSteach, an after school program that aims to get Latino/a students on a pathway to computing courses and careers beginning in elementary school. In CSteach, near-peers (local high school students) teach computing skills and concepts to 5 th graders using a social justice lens. CSteach addresses three key barriers in K-12 to recruiting and retaining Latinos in computing: 1) a lack of instrumental support to learn about and generate informed interest and confidence in CS; 2) few opportunities to take classes that will prepare them for high school and college-level CS; and 3) few programs that connect CS to the values of the students and their families. The CSteach program builds on research that suggests we can engage Latino/a students in CS by increasing the social relevance of computing. For example, Latino students are more likely than other groups to say that the message "Computing empowers you to do good" is very appealing (Association for Computing Machinery, 2009). Doing good is connected to family obligation, and family needs (often financial) serve as motivators for Latino/a students to pursue higher education and succeed on behalf of their families and communities (Cooper et al., 2005). When asked about their career goal and why they want to pursue it, most Latino/a 5 th grade students describe a helping profession (e.g., doctor, police), and say they want to help their community (Denner, Cooper, Dunbar, & Lopez, 2005). Truly engaging Latino/a youth involves building connections to their identity and culture by addressing the needs of the community, not just the individual (Solórzano, Villalpando, & Oseguera, 2005). This research formed the basis for the CSteach approach, which addresses some of the reasons why Latino students' interest in computing does not transfer into the attainment of degrees and participation in the CS workforce.

Examining Interest and Grades in Computer Science 1

Computer Science 1 (CS1), the first course taken by college-level computer science (CS) majors, has traditionally suffered from high failure rates. Efforts to understand this phenomenon have considered a wide range of predictors of CS success, such as prior programming experience, math ability, learning style, and gender, with findings that are suggestive but inconclusive. The current quasiexperimental study extends this research by exploring how the pedagogical approach of the course (traditional lecture vs. Peer Instruction (PI) and clickers) in combination with student achievement goals (mastery goals vs. performance goals) relates to exam grades, interest in the subject matter, and course enjoyment. The research revealed that students with performance goals scored significantly lower on final exams in both the lecture and PI conditions. However, students with performance goals reported higher levels of subject matter interest when taught through PI. Students with mastery goals, in both conditions, scored significantly higher on the final exam, had higher levels of interest, and reported higher levels of course enjoyment than their performance-oriented counterparts. The results suggest that PI may improve the level of subject-matter interest for some students, thereby indicating the importance of studying pedagogical approach as we seek to understand student outcomes in CS1.

Increasing Students’ Awareness of Their Behavior in Online Learning Environments with Visualizations and Achievement Badges

In online learning environments where automatic assessment is used, students often resort to harmful study practices such as procrastination and trial-and-error. In this paper, we study two teaching interventions that were designed to address these issues in a university-level computer science course. In the first intervention, we used achievement badges, a form of gamification, to reward students for submitting early, solving exercises with few iterations, and completing the exercises with full points. In the second intervention, we used heatmap visualizations that show a prediction of the student’s success if he or she continues to behave in the same way, based on data from earlier courses. The results from a controlled experiment show that the heatmap visualizations had an impact on how early the students submitted their exercises and how many points they earned from them. We also observed that performance approach goal orientation correlated with an interest towards the achievement badges whereas performance avoidance correlated with an interest towards the visualizations. The results indicate that increasing students’ awareness of their behavior can have a positive impact on their study practices and results. However, the same type of feedback may not suit all students because of individual differences.

The Effect of Achievement Badges on Students’ Behavior: An Empirical Study in a University-Level Computer Science Course

Achievement badges are a form of gamification that are used in an attempt to increase user engagement and motivation in various systems. A badge is typically a graphical icon that appears as a reward for the user after reaching an achievement but that has no practical value. In this study, we describe and evaluate the use of achievement badges in the TRAKLA2 online learning environment where students solve interactive, automatically assessed exercises in a Data Structures and Algorithms course throughout the semester. We conducted an experiment where the students (N=281) were randomly divided into a treatment and a control group, with and without achievement badges. Students in the treatment group were awarded achievement badges, for example, for solving exercises correctly on the first attempt, doing exercises early, or solving all the exercises in a round with full points. Grading was the same for both groups, i.e. collecting badges did not affect the final grade, even though the exercise points themselves did. Students’ activity in TRAKLA2 was logged in order to find out whether the achievement badges had an effect on their behavior. We also collected numerical and open-ended feedback in order to find out students’ attitudes towards the badges. Our results show that achievement badges can be used to affect students’ behavior. Statistically significant differences were observed in the time used per exercise, number of sessions, total time, and normalized total number of badges. Furthermore, the majority of the students reported being motivated by the badges. Based on our findings, achievement badges seem to be a promising method to motivate students and to encourage desired study practices.

Microblogging in Higher Education

Microblogging, with applications in many domains, including education, is one of the social media technologies with the greatest potential. The features of a microblogging platform vary from sending and receiving messages via the web, SMS, instant messaging clients, and by third party applications. Even though social media networking sites are commonly used in Higher Education, very little empirical evidence is available concerning the impact of social media use on student learning and engagement, albeit some studies on the use of Twitter as a microblogging tool in educational settings Fei Gao, Tian Luo and Ke Zhang (2012). In this study, the authors analyse the level of familiarity, engagement and frequency of use of social media technologies among university-level computer science students in Finland. Additionally, the authors analyse the experience of using a specific microblogging social media, Edmodo, as a learning aid to support group work. The specific focus of the study is to examine the reception of the students towards the Edmodo platform. The data was collected through a social media familiarity questionnaire, Edmodo experience questionnaire and interviews. The main findings are that the cohort was not very familiar with social media at the beginning of the course. However, the use of the Edmodo as a microblogging social media networking sites, as a learning tool had a positive impact on the students. This study provides experimental evidence that microblogging social networking sites and more specifically Edmodo can be used as an educational tool to help engage students more in the use of more social media networking sites.

Applications of computing technology-combining tangible skills and theory in CS0

Among the multitude of courses that many college-level Computer Science educators may teach is commonly a computing technology or computing literacy course geared towards non-Computer Science major...

Impact of Giving Students a Choice of Homework Assignments in an Introductory Computer Science Class

Student assignments have long been an integral part of many university level computer science courses to reinforce material covered in class with practical exercises. For years, researchers have studied ways to improve such student assignments by making them more interesting, applicable, and valuable to the student with a goal of improving learning outcomes by increasing student appeal. One often studied way to improve the learning outcome is by allowing students a choice in assignments. To ensure fairness for all students in providing such a choice, care must be taken to ensure assignment “equality” by ensuring an equal learning experience for all students regardless of their choice of homework assignments. Our introductory computer science class is a survey class which covers multiple topics including programming concepts, word processing, presentation software, computer security, spreadsheet usage and databases design and implementation. Students perform several programming exercises throughout the course to demonstrate their knowledge and improve their skill in programming. For a number of years, we’ve offered students a choice on their final assignment. Worth 10% of the course grade, the assignment provides students with either an analytical programming project or a software applications based project. The purpose of this paper is to look at the motivations that drove students to make the choice they did and the impact of their choice on their assignment grade and overall performance on the course final. Our findings indicate that care must be taken when offering options to the student as the choice the student makes may unintentionally and adversely affect both their learning experience and course performance.

Seminars on Software Maintenance and Evolution: An Empirical Study of the Background Factors Affecting Student Success

Software maintenance and evolution (SME) is an important but challenging topic area for university-level computer science education. Seminars can be used to provide students with versatile and up-to-date knowledge on scien- tifically relevant issues. We organized three systematic university-level seminars on SME. In these seminars 127 groups have each been assigned the task of analyzing one scientific SME article. The main results concern background factors re- lating to the students, groups and articles as these affect student success in the seminars. This paper presents a strict statis- tical analysis and a discussion of these factors. Fourteen hypotheses were set and tested regarding the relation of various background factors and a student's success in the seminar. The results indicate a clear relation between some of the factors and success. Most of the student- and group-related factors clearly affected student success, whereas most of the article- related factors did not. The study also revealed many important ancillary results. The results support organizing, studying, and improving feasible seminars in this area.

Advanced placement computer science

The Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science program is intended to reflect enough of a common core of a first semester or year of university-level computer science so that placement or credit can be awarded for work done before college. The SIGCSE symposia have a long history of providing forums for discussing the evolution of the AP program from its inception [1] to the transition from Pascal to C++ [3] to the transition from C++ to Java [2,5,7,8,9]. Panels related to how credit and placement are awarded have also been part of the SIGCSE conferences [4,6]. This special session is a report of the ongoing process of developing new and possible wide-ranging changes to the AP program.

Web site credibility: Why do people believe what they believe?

This research investigates university students’ determinations of credibility of information on Web sites, confidence in their determinations, and perceptions of Web site authors’ vested interests. In Study 1, university-level computer science and education students selected Web sites determined to be credible and Web sites that exemplified misrepresentations. Categorization of Web site credibility determinations indicated that the most frequently provided reasons associated with high credibility included information focus or relevance, educational focus, and name recognition. Reasons for knowing a Web site’s content is wrong included lack of corroboration with other information, information focus and bias. Vested interests associated with commercial Web sites were regarded with distrust and vested interests of educational Web sites were not. In Study 2, credibility determinations of university students enrolled in computer science courses were examined for 3 provided Web sites dealing with the same computer science topic. Reasons for determining Web site inaccuracy included own expertise, information corroboration, information design and bias. As in Study 1, commercial vested interests were negatively regarded in contrast to educational interests. Instructional implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.

High School Students Learning University Level Computer Science on the Web – a Case Study of the DASK-Model

Background Today's society requires citizens to have a greater knowledge of information technology. Strategy programs at a national level define the skills needed in an information society and encourage people to learn these skills (Ministry of Education, 2004). In order for everybody to have the opportunity to learn the basics of the new technology, computer science (CS) should be included in general education. The Finnish Educational System In the Finnish educational system, high schools (HSs) are referred to as upper secondary schools. The principal objective of these schools is to provide aged 16-19 with general, all-round education preparing them for further studies and life in general. According to Ben-Ari (2004), a science can be taught at lower levels when it matures. CS has traditionally been taught mainly at university level, but Ben-Ari argues that the time has come for it to be introduced at lower levels of education as well. For instance, in the USA (Merritt et al., 1993) and in Israel (Gal-Ezer, Beeri, Harel, & Yehudai, 1995), CS curricula for HSs were developed in the 1990s. In Finland, the situation seems to be going in the opposite direction: CS is not part of the HS core curriculum (National Board of Education, 2003). CS has thus a completely different position than other sciences, such as mathematics and physics, which are compulsory at secondary level. Considering (1) the objective of HSs, (2) Ben-Ari's vision and (3) Finland being one of the leading nations in the field of information technology, it can be seen as something of a paradox that CS is not included in the core curriculum of HSs; institutions that should provide all-round learning are not obliged to provide their with tuition in perhaps one of the most important subject areas today. Implications of the Lack of CS in High Schools When there are no formal requirements for instruction in CS, many HSs are not likely to expand the range of courses to include genuine CS courses; in the worst case, they will arrange no CS-related courses at all. If CS-related courses are taught at all, they are largely practical, aimed at teaching the how to use the computer and various software packages. The essential skills needed by all citizens in everyday life, such as algorithmic and logical thinking skills, are not developed when simply using the computer as a tool. Moreover, misconceptions of CS as focusing on computer hardware are reinforced when instruction is concentrated on purely technical and practical aspects. This has implications both for the general public and for future computer scientists; in particular, female may be intimidated by the stereotypical, nevertheless common, view of CS represented by a young male hacker sitting in front of his computer drinking soft drinks and eating pizza (Martin, 2004). These misconceptions may also result in enrolling in CS courses on the misconception that they will be of a practical nature, being unaware of the distinction between computer literacy and During ITiCSE 2003 (Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education--an international conference for researchers and practitioners in the field of CS education), a working group convened around the topic Preparing for university study in CS. Among other things, it analyzed the performance of CS in different countries during their first years at university (Alexander et al., 2003). One conclusion was that do not know what to expect when enrolling for studies in CS: students who join a degree programme on the basis of experience in using PCs and games consoles are likely to face something of a culture shock (p.144). Furthermore, researchers have studied factors predicting success in university CS, and many of them have found that pre-university CS courses increase the chance of succeeding at university level (Alexander et al. …