Robert McCartney

Putting threshold concepts into context in computer science education

This paper describes Threshold Concepts, a theory of learning that distinguishes core concepts whose characteristics can make them troublesome in learning. With an eye to applying this theory in computer science, we consider this notion in the context of related topics in computer science education.

Can graduating students design software systems

This paper examines software designs produced by students nearing completion of their Computer Science degrees. The results of this multi-national, multi institutional experiment present some interesting implications for educators.

Making it Real

Some have proposed that realistic problem situations are better for learning. This issue contains two articles that examine the effects of “making it real” in computer architecture and human-computer interaction.

Diagram processing: computing with diagrams

Of the set of behaviors that will be required of an autonomous artificially intelligent agent, a somewhat neglected member has been the ability to deal with diagrammatic information. We describe a theoretical and computational foundation for machine processing of certain forms of diagrammatic information and show its usefulness in enabling a system to draw inferences from diagrammatic information, make decisions using diagrammatic information, learn from diagrammatic information, solve problems posed diagrammatically, and communicate diagrammatically in a variety of domains.

Program assessment tools in computer science: a report from the trenches

In this paper, we investigate the question of what assessment tools are being used in practice by United States computing programs and what the faculty doing the assessment think of the tools and of the assessment process in general. We report on the results of two surveys, distributed to the SIGCSE mailing list and to the chairs of all ABET-CAC accredited computer science programs. We found that both parts of these surveys--the multiple-choice sections and the comments--provided some interesting insights into program assessment from the perspective of those responsible for collecting and using the information.

Learning computer science: perceptions, actions and roles

This phenomenographic study opens the classroom door to investigate teachers’ experiences of students learning difficult computing topics. Three distinct themes are identified and analysed. Why do students succeed or fail to learn these concepts? What actions do teachers perceive will ameliorate the difficulties facing students? Who is responsible, and for what, in the learning situation? Theoretical work on threshold concepts and conceptual change deals with mechanisms and processes associated with learning difficult material [Meyer, J. and Land, R., 2005. Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49 (3), 373–388; Entwistle, N., 2007. Conceptions of learning and the experience of understanding: thresholds, contextual influences, and knowledge objects. In: S. Vosniadou, A. Baltas and X. Vamvakoussi, eds. Re-framing the conceptual change approach in learning and instruction. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier, chap. 11]. With this work as a background, we concentrate on the perceptions of teachers. Where do teachers feel that the difficulties lie when studying the troublesome knowledge in computing? Student and teacher-centric views of teaching reported in other literature are also to be seen in our results. The first two categories in the ‘what’ and ‘who’ themes are teacher-centric. Higher level categories in all themes show increasingly learner centred conceptions of the instructional role. However, the nature of the categories in the ‘why’ theme reveals a new dimension dealing with teacher beliefs specific to the nature of troublesome knowledge in computing. A number of prior studies in tertiary teaching concentrate on approaches to teaching [Trigwell, K. and Prosser, M., 2004. Development and use of the approaches to teaching inventory. Educational Psychology Review, 16 (4), 409–424], and attitudes to scholarship of teaching and learning [Ashwin, P. and Trigwell, K., 2004. Investigating educational development. In: Making sense of staff and educational development, 117–131]. Our focus on learning difficult topics extends this work, investigating teacher conceptions of causality in relation to learning difficulties. We argue that teacher conceptions of enabling factors, for learning difficult computing topics, can act to limit the nature and scope of academics’ pedagogical responses. Improved awareness of teachers beliefs regarding student learning difficulties both extends and complements existing efforts to develop a more student-centred computing pedagogy.

Selecting open source software projects to teach software engineering

Aspiring software engineers must be able to comprehend and evolve legacy code, which is challenging because the code may be poorly documented, ill structured, and lacking in human support. These challenges of understanding and evolving existing code can be illustrated in academic settings by leveraging the rich and varied volume of Open Source Software (OSS) code. To teach SE with OSS, however, it is necessary to select uniform projects of appropriate size and complexity. This paper reports on our search for suitable OSS projects to teach an introductory SE course with a focus on maintenance and evolution. The search turned out to be quite labor intensive and cumbersome, contrary to our expectations that it would be quick and simple. The chosen projects successfully demonstrated the maintenance challenges, highlighting the promise of using OSS. The burden of selecting projects, however, may impede widespread integration of OSS into SE and other computing courses.

Threshold concepts and threshold skills in computing

Threshold concepts can be used to both organize disciplinary knowledge and explain why students have difficulties at certain points in the curriculum. Threshold concepts transform a students view of the discipline; before being learned, they can block a students progress. In this paper, we propose that in computing, skills, in addition to concepts, can sometimes be thresholds. Some students report finding skills more difficult than concepts. We discuss some computing skills that may be thresholds and compare threshold skills and threshold concepts.

Liminal spaces and learning computing

‘Threshold concepts’ are concepts that, among other things, transform the way a student looks at a discipline. Although the term ‘threshold’ might suggest that the transformation occurs at a specific point in time, an ‘aha’ moment, it seems more common (at least in computing) that a longer time period is required. This time period is referred to as the ‘liminal space’. In this paper, we summarise our findings concerning how computing students experience the liminal space and discuss how this might affect teaching. Most of our findings so far relate to software engineering. As it is likely that similar liminal spaces occur in other engineering disciplines, these findings have relevance across engineering education.

Categorizing student software designs: Methods, results, and implications

This paper examines the problem of studying and comparing student software designs. We propose semantic categorization as a way to organize widely varying data items. We describe how this was used to organize a particular multi-national, multi-institutional dataset, and present the results of this analysis: most students are unable to effectively design software. We examine how these designs vary with different academic and demographic factors, and discuss the implications of this work on both education and education research.